WINKERS OFF AND EARN TO BURN SCORCHES HOME

By Graham Potter | Saturday, July 5, 2025

Earn To Burn ($6) outgunned his opposition in a pressurised finish to win the Bruce McLachlan Classic, a QTIS Two-Year-Old Handicap over 1000m.

It was a tough win for Jack Bruce trained son of Better Than Ready, who was held out four wide from a number nine barrier all the way until turning into the home straight … and there was no rest on straightening as Earn To Burn almost immediately got involved in a stride-for-stride battle with Jaggery ($12) as they both set about chasing down the long-time leader, the $91 bolter Mishani Extreme.

It was quite an intense battle with Earn To Burn and Jaggery both refusing to give an inch.

Their charge took them past Mishani Extreme at the 200m mark … and now it was a race in two, that unfolded in two parts,

Initially it was Jaggery who gained a slight ascendency inside the final 150m, but Earn To Burn wasn’t done just yet, and Luke Dempsey continued to rally the Bruce trained runner, who kept responding, to the point where he came back and headed Jaggery with 50m left to run and then was good enough to maintain that hard fought advantage to the line to put Jaggery back in second place by a 0.48 length margin.

The gear change of ‘winkers off’ seemingly played a part in the win.

The $2.80 favourite Prestar was the runner closing on the first two at the line, but that effort was only good enough for third place, 0,55 lengths behind the winner.

Coming to the Sunshine Coast, Earn To Burn was a battle-ready fourth-up this preparation. In his three previous starts this prep he had secured his Maiden win at Toowoomba and also taken on Listed company in the Oxlade and Group 3 company in the Champagne Classic.

He finished unplaced in both of those feature race runs, but he had a luckless draw of barrier fourteen on both of those occasions and, arguably, just being given his chance there suggested that the stable does have a good opinion of him.

“He has always been a handy horse,” offered Jack Bruce. “I tried to get him ready for The Debut (last December) but it was probably a bit much, too soon for him … but he has come back well after a break.

“He probably overdid it in those stakes races from wide draws … and when he drew wide again, I was a bit worried, but he was well ridden … and he is tough. Probably 1000m … 1100m is his go now.

“The winkers were helpful early on but as he has got older and learnt what it is all about it probably fired him up too much, so it is really good to get a good result for as talented a two-year-old that I he is.

“It was nice to find the right race to get it done.”

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