Jackeroo Shannon displayed superiority with his win in the ECO Energy & Solar Solutions Pace at the Tamworth harness meeting on Sunday evening.
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Now trained in the Hunter Valley at Ellalong by Michael Formosa, Jackeroo Shannon had the support of his regular trainer and driver Sarah Rushbrook from the sidelines with the gelding making a return visit to his home paceway.
"I'm stoked with the win - I started screaming at the 400 mark," Rushbrook said.
Rushbrook races Jackeroo Shannon along with Cameron Bullock and Rob Hislop and normally handles both the training and driving herself but elected to send her stable runners to the Formosa stables whilst she is on the sidelines recovering from injuries sustained in a race fall at Inverell back in March.
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"Mick drove him (Jackeroo Shannon) an absolute treat and when I saw him three the fence, I thought just go the chair," she said.
Jackeroo Shannon gained the one-by-one racing position from the three barrier but Formosa elected to switch to the inside running line with the Somebeachsomewhere-Matilda Shannon gelding.
With equal $4.00 race favourite Van Laddie (Tom Ison) leading the field and stablemate Alabama Shakes (Jake Hughes) racing in on his back, some smart quarters of 28.9 seconds; 29.2 seconds; 28.3 seconds and 31.3 seconds were ran, for a mile rate of 1.57.
"Turning for home and before he even pulled off his back (Alabama Shakes), I thought Jack is travelling good and I thought we might nearly have this," added an emotional Rushbrook.
"He went 1.56 at Menangle but 1.57 is definitely the best he has gone here at Tamworth."
Formosa knew that Jackeroo Shannon had been racing well leading into the Tamworth start.
"He was up in grade and all the better class horses drew bad and I did say to Sarah that if he gets a nice run, he should go good," he said.
"Last week he finished fourth in a good time at Newcastle and he is more known as a leader but tonight he travelled nice all the way."
Racing with his ears pricked down the home straight Formosa was waiting for that "comfortable moment" with Jackeroo Shannon.
"He is a bit like that - once he gets out on his own, he doesn't want to go on with it so I had to make sure of driving him to the line until I knew I had the race in the bag," he said.
Jackeroo Shannon went on for a 6.6 metre win over Van Laddie and Spikeador (Dean Chapple) 2.5 metres away third.
"I thought three the fence was the place to be in the race as I thought the one in the death (Gottashopearly) is probably going to stop but when he is right, he is a good horse," Formosa said.
He has had Jackeroo Shannon for five starts with Sunday his second race win for the stables.
"His first two runs for me were pretty good considering he had just come back from a spell. Today he really stepped up but he has been working up to racing the better horses," he said.
"They went 1.57 which is a good run."
The eight-race card on Sunday evening at Tamworth saw female reinswomen produce winning drives on three occasions -Jemma Coney driving Portalegre for the Clayton Harmey stables, Madi Young producing a win with Karaoke Rock for the Greg Coney stables and Caitlin McElhinney with Power To Bolt of who she trains.
All three ladies are graduates of the Shoalhaven Mini Trotting Club.