DOOMBEN: JANUARY 1: VIENNA ROYALE HOLDS ON IN A BLANKET FINISH TO CLAIM HER SECOND CAREER WIN

By Graham Potter | Friday, January 2, 2015

WINNER: VIENNA ROYALE (3 b g Falvelon - Plachutta).
QTIS 3yo Handicap – 1200m.
Track: Good 4; Rail: Out 6m.
Time 1.10.47 (carrying 57kg); Last 600m: 34.84.
Second: Castinita; Third: She’s Miss Devine.
Won by 0.30 lengths at a starting price of $12.

Vienna Royale was a 5.50 length debut winner back in October 2013. It took another nine runs over three preparations covering fourteen months before he could deliver her second career victory which he did here by fighting tooth and nail over the closing stages in a highly pressurised finish which saw less than a length cover the first six finishers to cross the line.

Trainer Tony Gollan is convinced the gelding needs a good track to be at his best. Notably, in his ten starts Vienna Royale has challenged in Listed on three occasions (The Phelan Ready Stakes, the Dalrello and the Gold Edition Plate) as well finishing a creditable sixth in last year’s Magic Millions 2yo Classic, coming home 4.50 lengths behind Unencumbered … so the potential has always been there. It will be interesting to see how he kicks on from here, given this latest confidence- boosting victory.

WINNER FEEDBACK:

TRAINER TONY GOLLAN:

“I didn’t train a double on New Year’s day last year so we’re improving.

“We wanted to get this horse back to winning and we really didn’t know what to do with him.

“We were going to drop him back in grade … but I thought he might just be looking for a good track and a good alley and we got it all today and he was ridden perfectly.

“It was good to get up the inside like that and tough it out. He actually wanted to win which was important.

"The horse hasn’t won for a year and you start to wonder whether they’ve lost that will to win, but I felt in his work and the way he’d been training up that he hadn’t lost it.

“So I didn’t go back in grade with him. I put a bit of confidence in him and he repaid me.

“Tegan (Harrison) was on him last time. I’m always very happy to have her on my horse. Nothing went right on a slow track but we were back on a dry track today … and I’m adamant the slow track was the problem the other day.

“These three-year-olds are much alike and, if you think your horse is going well, you’ve got to put them in and have a crack.

“That’s what we did today and got the job done.”

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