With A Promise scores boilover in Stocking
Trainer Ben Currie is glad he bowed to the wishes of owner Mike Crooks when outsider With A Promise scored a boilover win in the Silk Stocking on the Gold Coast.
Currie was scanning race programs to find a suitable restriced class race for With A Promise when Crooks requested the filly take on black type company on Saturday.
“I thought if she got beaten here I was going to run her in a Class Five at Toowoomba next weekend but now she’s a stakes winner,” Currie said.
Beaten in a Class 6 event at Doomben at her previous start, With A Promise ($81) led throughout to hold off the fast-finishing Nancy ($6.50) to win by a short half-head, narrowly denying champion jockey Hugh Bowman a quartet of winners.
“She’s been flying on the track and is so tough and genuine as she just showed,” Currie said.
“They got to her two or three times in the straight but she just tries her guts out.”
Currie and apprentice Josh Oliver have forged a formidable combination in recent months.
They joined forces with Col ‘n’ Lil, which dead-heated with Jumbo Prince to win Toowoomba’s feature sprint, the Weetwood Handicap at Clifford Park on April 8.
Bowman was full of praise for Nancy, which conceded With A Promise 5kg in weight and stormed home to narrowly miss after being held up for a run on straightening.
“It was a terrific effort for her to get so close to the winner carrying such a big weight,” Bowman said.
Larry Cassidy said Elegant Composure had her chance to win but was pleased nonetheless with her effort to finish third.