Sundowner Shannon: Blake Hughes wins behind gelding in first of three Paceway triumphs

After commencing from the three barrier, the $3.80 race favourite secured a 3.6m win over the Dean Chapple-trained and driven Grandview, while Navua Girl from the Anthony Varga stables was a further 3.4m away in third place.

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Prepared at Tamworth by Ian "Ernie" Mabbott, the trainer and owner was simply "over the moon" after the win of the Shadow Play-Gerrards six-year-old gelding.

"He has been a bit of a problem horse but he goes all right," Mabbott said.

Sundowner Shannon now has three wins from 13 starts since he came into Mabbott's stables in March.

"It has been a hard road," the trainer said of his career.

For Blake Hughes, Sundowner Shannon was the first of three winning drives on Thursday afternoon's eight-race program.

"The front-row draw helped the horse out a lot as he has got a lot of gate speed," Hughes said. "He got to the finish line pretty easy. He was always going to be hard to beat out in front."

Leading the field, Hughes let Sundowner Shannon increase his race tempo over the final 400m on a heavy track - with five millimetres of rain recorded earlier in the day.

"The track was holding up good after the rain we had," Hughes said.

"I have had six drives behind the horse - five gallops (break-in running) and now finally a win."

Hughes again showed his superiority with the reins after accepting the drive behind the Tony Missen-trained My Kinda Justus, who had a 2.7m win over Narrabri pacer Gojoe (Chris Shepherdson) in taking out the Northern Daily Leader Appreciation Pace (1980m).

The Len Simon-trained Big Beat (Courtney Sutherland) finished third.

"I was a bit worried going three wide around the final turn but she finished the race off good," Hughes said.

My Kinda Justus is raced by Joy Missen and her son Daniel.

The third win of the day for Hughes came courtesy of Hunter Valley pacer A Gift From Heaven, who is trained by Aaron Goadsby.

The $2.10 race favourite had a 2.6m win over Wotnow Swanee (Caitlin McElhinney), with Peggy Sue Shannon (Dean Chapple) a half head away in third place after racing four wide around the final bend.

"I had a bit of trouble getting out on the turn," Hughes said.

A Gift From Heaven clocked a mile rate of 1min 59.8sec for the 1609m, with the Rocknroll Heaven's previous five starts in metropolitan company.

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