The final strides of the Psarakis Accounting Marathon Pace at the Tamworth harness meeting on Thursday epitomised the winner’s name – Itsallaboutlu.
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Bathurst trainer and reinsman Nathan Hurst knew he had the horse who could complete the mission of covering the 2730 metres in the feature race, but all he needed was luck.
“That made the trip worthwhile,” Hurst said after the win of the John Street North gelding, who has been in his stable for three starts now.
“He went really good,” Hurst added. “His form doesn’t read that great but he has actually been going pretty good without any luck. But he managed to get that today.”
Local pacer Itsnewstome from the Richard Williams stables did all the hard work leading the field, with Tom Ison in the spider setting a handy pace of 31 seconds for the first quarter, 29.9sec for the second, 30sec for the third quarter and 31.3sec for the fourth.
Race favourite Onedin Highlander from the Mitch Faulkner stables raced out in the breeze.
Hurst waited patiently racing three back on the pegs but knew he was in a good field and was waiting for his “lucky break” to come.
“It was a good mix of horses and all of a pretty good grade. But he just needed the luck and I was happy with how he was going,” Hurst said.
The race changed complexion when the bell sounded and Hunter Valley pacer Exterminate (Dan Morgan) made a three-wide run.
“We needed to get out down the back and the run came thru the middle – luckily – but once he [Itsallaboutlu] got out he sprinted really good,” Hurst said.
Itsallaboutlu raced three wide on the final turn to come down the home straight for a 1.3m win over Onedin Highlander.
The Faulkner stables also finished third in the feature with Gottashopearly, who was half a neck behind Onedin Highlander. Michael Formosa was in the spider.
Returning to scale, Hurst was obviously happy with the effort of Itsallaboutlu, who was having career start 133 and set a new track record with a mile rate of 2:01.3 for 2730m – taking the crown from the winner of last year’s event, Idlehands, who clocked 2:02.60 for the longer-distanced race.
“Jimmy the owner brought this horse and he just wanted to win a race with him. To get the win and the track record today [Thursday], he would be wrapped.” Hurst said, in reference to Jimmy Clyburn.
The horse is co-raced by Ray Moore.
The Marathon attracted runners from Queensland and the Hunter Valley as well as a strong local contingent, with Itsallaboutlu the only Western districts runner.
“We just love coming up here to Tamworth to race. There’s a great atmosphere and we really enjoy it,” Hurst said.