Gottashopearly took up the challenge early in the running of the 2730-metre $8,000 Psarakis Accounting Marathon Pace at Tamworth Paceway on Thursday afternoon resulting in a winner’s cheque for his connections.
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Trained by Richard Williams at Tamworth, Gottashopearly and his reinsman Brad Elder showed strong supremacy over the field, coming into the event off a last start win over 2360-metre distance the week prior.
“Brad drove him well and gave him every chance – we were pretty confident and he won accordingly,” Williams said.
The Williams Racing Team had three runners engaged in the Marathon with Williams himself electing to take the drive behind The Puritan who settled mid field from the nine barrier.
“It all looked good from behind where I was,” Williams joked.
As the barrier pulled away, stablemate Midnight Montana found the lead from the two barrier with Sarah Rushbrook in the gig.
Gottashopearly commenced from the ten barrier and was four back in the outside running line before Elder decided to send the bay gelding three-wide as the field raced into the home straight on the first occasion – with three laps still remaining – to make a challenge and obtain the lead.
“When he [Gottashopearly] found the top, I thought it was just about game over,” Elder said.
As the bell sounded the race moves and tactics commenced.
“When I saw the moves coming I thought ‘well catch this then’,” Elder said.
“I actually put the foot down 50 [metres] from the post with a lap to go and I was thinking I would break them up a bit.
Elder added: “He can sit and he can sprint – he just does it good.
“Richie has done a super job with the horse – he is probably the cheapest claimer in the world.
“The horse has also done super – he loves the trip. He did it on his ear. It was just a walk it the park for him. He is a pretty good stayer and the Marathon was the perfect race for him.”
There was more reason for celebration on returning to scale as Williams had just trained his first Marathon winner and 19-year-old Elder had just achieved his first win and drive in a Marathon race.
“That was my first Marathon – yeah I was a bit worried that I would miscount the laps,” Elder joked.
“When Richie rang me about a drive in the Marathon I didn’t give him an option. I just told him I was driving Gottashopearly.”
Elder himself has had a good strike rate with Gottashopearly with eight drives for four wins.
Gottashopearly clocked a 2.01.6 mile rate – just outside the track record set by Itsallaboutlou in last year’s running – in taking the win by 15.5 metres over nearest rival Tulhurst Ace (Peter Hedges) and race favourite Rambo Mick (Laura Spencer) a neck away third.
The Williams stable had enjoyed success earlier in the day when Martinson led all the way to take out the Select Autoglass Pace, giving Williams a training double for the meeting.
“This is quite a special win for us. We have put a lot of work into the horse, he has just got so much ability but he has had a lot of things wrong with him,” Williams said.
“It’s like we have won the lottery with him today.
“We were hoping to get an easy lead, and there wasn’t much pressure in the race.”
Martinson held a 4.9-metre over Battle Chimes (Jess Dart) and Ladyjoanna Shannon (Brad Elder) another 6.9 metres away third.
