LIGHTLY RACED TARAVIA LANDS HIS FIRST SUCCESS

By Graham Potter | Friday, November 21, 2025

The Tony and Maddysen Sears trained four-year-old gelding Taravia came to Grafton second-up in only his fifth career start and proceeded to shed his Maiden ticket by a decisive 1.26 length margin in a character-building win, making light work of a testing heavy track in a Maiden Handicap over 1700m on November 21.

With Brandon Lerena in the saddle for the first time, Taravia went back to just worse than midfield early, and was held three wide some five lengths off the leader as the field went down the back stretch.

At the 1000m mark, Lerena had enough of the slow pace and he revved Taravia up with a swift forward move which took the Sears trained runner up to join the leader with the minimum of fuss.

Once there, Lerena was content to allow Taravia to mark time and merely hold that position … that is until the approach to the home turn where Lerena had to get busy in the saddle as challengers threatened to come around him.

It took a while for Taravia to assert his authority as he was hounded by a wall of runners in the first half of the straight, but he gallantly soaked up that pressure before finding that extra gear over the final 150m to leave the best of the rest only battling for the minor placings.