Brown Ben set to stay South after first up win
TONY McEvoy-trained gelding Brown Ben has made a winning return to racing following a two month break after taking out the Roger Shinnick benchmark 82 at Morphettville.
Under a masterful ride Damien Thornton, the +510 winner at Crownbet.com.au threaded a passage through and stormed over the top of the leader Moss ‘N’ Dale (-250 at WilliamHill.com.au) to record a brilliant first up triumph.
Step The Pedal finished in third but did not yield a return in a smaller field.
The race was all about Brown Ben however, and specifically Thornton’s ride which was one of the finer performances of the day.
Stable representative John Cornell described the ride as “outstanding”.
“The instructions were just to ride him quiet, but they didn’t go very hard in the race,” Cornell said.
“He pulled the right rein by going to the inside.”
The win was Brown Ben’s first-ever first up success, which also made it three wins from six attempts at the South Australian track.
Cornell said the team was confident of breaking through at the first attempt this preparation.
“He had a couple of luckless runs in Melbourne, we brought him home and took him back to the farm for a couple of weeks and just gave him a bit of a freshen up.
“We took him to the trials at Murray Bridge a couple of Fridays ago and the horse trialed enormous and we were confident that if the race was run to suit he’d be in the finish.”
The winning return has given the stable hope that South Australia could be the right state to race in for Brown Ben, and Cornell said the team has plenty of options in and around the city of churches.
“Tony thinks that he’ll just play around with him here (in South Australia),” he said.
“He’ll pick a nice race or two out for him. He seems to do better here, so we’ll leave him here for the time being.”