A LONG TIME BETWEEN DRINKS BUT SINAWANN EARNS A PLACE BACK IN THE WINNER'S ENCLOSURE

By Graham Potter | Wednesday, January 15, 2025

The Irish-bred eight-year-old Sinawann claimed a fourth career victory when he saluted in an Open Handicap over 1100m at Ipswich on January 15.

Now trained by Tony and Maddysen Sears, the son of Kingman has an interesting history.

This latest win at Ipswich was Sinawann’s fourth career success and it came nearly sixteen thousand kilometres from Sinawann’s original home base in Irelend, where he raced ten times, saluting at both the Curragh (in a Maiden) and at Leopardstown (in the Group 3 Amethyst Stakes over 1600m).

Over those ten starts, Sinawann also finished second in two Group 2 races and third in two Group 3 races.

Early in his time in Australia, Sinawann won the Group 3 Heffernan Stakes at Caulfield for Anthony and Sam Freedman and finished second in the Group 2 Australia Stakes behind Marabi who would go on to win the Oakleigh Plate a month later.

At that stage Sinawann was a three-time winner from thirteen starts with ten minor placings to his credit.

From there things did not go as smoothly.

Between February 2022 and the start of July 2023, Sinawann raced nine times without finishing in the first three places. At the start of the 2023/24 season,

Sinawann switched stables from the Freedman camp to Joe Pride, but the next win for the gelding still proved to be elusive.

In eight starts for Pride Sinawann’s best result was a third place finish.

That’s when Sinawann was sent to the Tony and Maddysen Sears training partnership to see if they could get Sinawann back into the winners’ enclosure.

That they did, although it did take four runs for his new stable before a winning result kicked in.

Brisbane’s leading rider Jimmy Orman put Sinawann ($7.50) right into the race early, taking up a watching brief just two lengths off the leaders in the early part … and then three lengths back in the middle of the sweep to the home turn, but still travelling comfortably.

Orman had Sinawann two wide on the bend and the Sears trained runner still had two lengths to make up on straightening.

Sinawann ran on well enough in the first half of the straight without making any significant inroads into the deficit he faced but, approaching the 100m … the real business end of affairs … Orman got Sinawann to find an extra gear and he surged forward to join and get the better of the $3.90 favourite Ovidius inside the final 50m.

Victory was still not assured though as another $7.50 chance Light Of Boom flashed up late, but Sinawann had dome enough to hold that one out by a diminishing 0.06 length margin.

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