RED WAVE GIVES TEAM SEARS A HOME TOWN CUP WIN

By Graham Potter | Saturday, September 28, 2024

Winning your home-town cup is something on every trainer’s bucket list … and when it comes with the added achievement of completing a rare Cup double there is just so much more to celebrate.

Enter the Toowoomba based training partnership of Tony and Maddysen Sears and the six-year-old bay gelding Red Wave.

Red Wave had won the $250 000 Ipswich Cup back on June 22, saluting at double figure odds of $17, a result which reiterated the fact that a runner with the consistent level of performance that Red Wave has displayed (he had finishing in the first three places twenty-two times in forty-two starts going into the Ipswich Cup) is overlooked at the punter’s own peril.

Punters were not about to make the same mistake again … particularly with Red Wave racing on home turf and top jockey Ryan Maloney in the saddle … although the $5.50 starting price on offer about Red Wave’s chances when the son of Red Dazzler lined up in the $125 000 Toowoomba Cup on September 28 was still pretty attractive odds.

Red Wave came into the race off a third place finish at Doomben three weeks earlier, which was an important run in terms of priming Red Wave for a peak level performance in the Sears’ teams home town Cup … but he did have it all to do at the weights with the 60kg he was handed by the handicapper meaning Red Wave had to carry between 1.5kg and 8kg more than all but one of his opponents, the exception being the joint top weight Warp Speed, the Townsville Cup winner.

That scenario suggested that, however the race unfolded, Red Wave would have to be resolute in the finish if he was to gain the desired result.

Maloney put the advantage of an inside barrier draw (number 3) to good use in the initial stages, getting Red Wave away well enough to secure a spot just a couple of lengths off the lead as the field came past the grandstand for the for time, before heading out to complete a circuit of the track.

Once in position, Maloney kept Red Wave a couple of horses off the rail, ensuring that the Sears trained runner would have the space to allow him to run his own race, and he held that path when racing down the back stretch … in sixth, then seventh place … some five lengths off the lead.

Maloney then asked Red Wave to produce a measured forward move in the sweep to the home turn, which Red Wave did on cue to corner five wide, in fourth spot, and now just two lengths off the lead.

That’s when things really got hectic.

Coming through the 200m mark Red Wave was one of five runners spread across the track in a punishing battle for supremacy. To his outside, the $3.50 favourite Caboche was coming on strong, seemingly having momentum on his side.

The early leaders This’illbethe one ($13) and Tidal Creek ($10) were the first to cry enough … and then there were three.

Linthorpe Lad kicked on briefly, but then he too fell away inside the final 100m at which stage Red Wave was now holding off Caboche, but still with no room to relax, looking like he was doing enough to secure the result.

But Red Wave was about to be tested again late as Nikau Spur ($9.50), who was held up momentarily at the top of the straight, charged late down the centre of the track, making up ground with every stride … but Red Wave remained resolute to the line to hold off Nikau Spur, who carried 4.5kg less than Red Wave, by a diminishing 0.20 length margin.

It was a victory full of courage and commitment and it earned a special place in the record books with Red Wave completing that Ipswich Cup / Toowoomba Cup double.

Red Wave is now a seven-time winner, with sixteen minor placings from forty-three starts, and with prize-money earnings of $730 700. He has won from 1200m to 2218m … and has won on good, soft and heavy going.

They don’t come more honest than Red Wave and, in the grand scheme of things, taking into account all he has done, you couldn’t really ask for more.

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