TOOROOLOO TAKES HER STRIKE RATE TO FIFTY PERCENT

By Graham Potter | Saturday, March 27, 2021

Toorooloo pushed her winning strike rate record up to an impressive fifty precent when she landed the third win of her six start career in the Three-Year-Old Handicap over 1050m at Doomben.

The win gave trainer David Vandyke and jockey Mark Du Plessis a double at the meeting after the team had scored earlier with Weona Smartone.

The filly was putting back-to-back wins together here after beating Back When over 1200m in the same class at the Sunshine Coast at her previous start and she handed out a repeat dose to her opposition.

Interestingly enough, the challenge for Toorooloo appears to have as much to do with the pre-race parade as the race itself.

“From the enclosure out onto the track was a big effort,” said Vandyke. “She gets worked up. She is just very fizzy. Even at home when we try to do things with her. She has got ADD. She can’t stand still. She is busy.

“Full marks to the attendants, the clerk of the course, the barrier staff … everybody did a great job in helping with this girl … and we needed help.

“Once the gates opened though, it is all business.

“Barrier one … and she had the gate speed to utilise it. Mark (Du Plessis) did a great job of just keeping her balanced, holding something … and then she kicked off the corner and that was it.

“Mark knew he had a lap full of horse and, to my mind, when they had gone a hundred metres, I thought it was almost over. She was where we wanted her to be at that point and the rest is history.”

“She has got a few tricks,” confirmed Mark Du Plessis. ‘Once she got down o the gates and was in there, she was pretty good.

“She settled. She relaxed and then she controlled the race and won very well.

‘I was happy to lead and glad I did, because I think if I tried to organise her I would have undone her.”

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