STEADY READY ON TARGET FOR A BIG KOTM SHOWING

By Graham Potter | Saturday, March 15, 2025

Bring on The King Of The Mountain!

That was the war-cry of the Tiny and Maddysen Sears training partnership after the very speedy Steady Ready trounced his opposition for the second successive time over the Eagle Farm 1000m trip, this time stopping the clock in 56.20 seconds, not far off the track record of 55.80 he set in his previous start when he became the first horse to break 56 seconds on the ‘new’ Eagle Farm track.

The King Of The Mountain (KOTM) is a $750 000 slot race which will take place at Toowoomba on Friday March 28.

This will be the third running of the KOTM and Steady Ready, who already has a history in the race, will run under the slot banner of his owner Javen See, who was at the track on Saturday to watch Steady Ready ‘live’ for the very first time.

Steady Ready has been a constant presence in the KOTM to date, having finished third behind his stable-mate Yellow Brick in the inaugural running of the event … and then second behind Rothfire last year, not only getting closer in finishing position but also in terms of finishing margins, being beaten by 2.80 and 0.30 lengths on those two occasions.

This will be the first time that Steady Ready will come into the KOTM on the back of two successive wins.

“That was obviously a good warm-up for the King Of The Mountain and if you look at how he has pulled up there is a lot of room for improvement,” said co-trainer Maddysen Sears.

“He is having a good blow. He’s pulled up quite big actually, so potentially it has worked in his favour that he had do a bit more early in the run … and had a bit more of a fitness run than we had anticipated.

“It was a big run. I was a bit nervous actually when he was four deep early, but he showed again he is super talented and a horse to be reckoned with.

Jockey Cody Collis, who partnered Steady Ready to both of these two recent wins, echoed Maddysen Sears’s thoughts.

“When you know what kind of horse you’ve got under you, you can try to use that extra fuel to get outside the leader, or wherever you need to be,” said Collis.

“He is an extraordinary horse. He’ll be a major contender in the King Of The Mountain.”
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The Eagle Farm race.

Steady Ready jumped as the $2.30 favourite at Eagle Farm in an Open Handicap over 1000m on March 15.

Only ordinarily away from a six out of nine barrier draw, Steady Ready was held four wide for the first 300m before Collis asked the son of Better Than Ready to stretch out a bit more … and the Sears trained runner quickly forged up to join the frontrunning Compelling Truth ($4.80) approaching the home turn, still travelling three wide.

You could make that two wide and right alongside Compelling Truth as these two runners straightened at the top of the home straight.

It remained a two-horse battle for 150m, but Steady Ready then took the measure of Compelling Truth passing the 300m mark, and he continued to sustain a powerful race-winning run all the way to the line, to see off the game challenge of Wanda Rox, the $3.60 second favourite, who ran on well enough late to claim second spot, 1.25 lengths behind the winner.

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