BRETT Dodson returned to his old home town to win the TAB Benchmark 55 Handicap (1200m) at Tamworth with a gelding that appears to be over a lot of setbacks.
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Guided swept down the extreme outside to beat Kris Lees-trained favourite Ombramani by 1 ½ lengths.
Matthew Bennett rode Guided for Coffs Harbour-based Dodson and delighted with the effort by the four-year- old gelding son of Henrythenavigator.
“I wanted to be wide but not that wide,” Bennett said on dismounting.
Indeed he was just a horse or two inside the outside fence at Tamworth which also intrigued Dodson, who had started his racing career as an apprentice and then a trainer in the country music capital.
“Is this the right place,” he joked.
“It’s been so long since I’ve been here.”
He left Tamworth to base himself at Coffs Harbour around 15 years ago and continues to make a success of that.
Returning to win at Tamworth was also a pleasure he said with a horse who has had plenty of issues.
“He was a Coolmore horse but had a cyst in his stifle,” Brett Dodson said.
“They said he’d make a nice horse to syndicate so we got him syndicated with a few blokes over here, also a couple for Tamworth, Gav Galvin and Kevin Sole too. His first couple of preps he did everything wrong, he’d over race.
“We took the blinkers off him and he’d miss the jump by 20 lengths. He just found a lot of trouble but it looks like we’ve found a happy medium with him with the winkers. He’s racing tractably now.”