FRADD REAPING THE REWARDS OF A BRAVE DECISION

By Graham Potter | Tuesday, July 12, 2022

Sometimes you have to adjust your sights to hit your target.

But that can sometimes be easier said than done when the nature of the change can be construed by others as a step backwards … and so you might have to be brave to do what is best for you.

Robbie Fradd has been brave in that respect and he is currently reaping the rewards for making that sight adjustment as he is now blowing the target out of the water time after time with renewed, enthusiastic aplomb.

Seventeen winners in his last fifty starts is the statistical record of Fradd’s success story in the last month alone. Rides aplenty and with the winners flowing rubber-stamp the value of a decision that Fradd made last November.

Speaking at that time, Fradd said, “It is really hard to get rides in Brisbane at the moment. It doesn’t help that they race a lot at Eagle Farm now because the noms there generally are small. You get maybe eight runners and half of the rides are filled by apprentices because trainers want to claim.

“I decided that, whenever I can’t get decent rides there, I’ll go down to the coast or wherever I have to. I don’t mind. It doesn’t worry me.”

And the results that Fradd has been putting on the board since then, and continues to put on the board nine months later, confirm, in no uncertain terms, that his decision is paying off big time.

Only two of Fradd’s seventeen winners in the last month have been in town (when he had a double at Doomben) … with the balance coming on the back of Fradd following his philosophy of going to whenever he can get decent rides … with his winning venues of the last month stretching from the Gold Coast (where he rode four winners at one meeting), Ipswich (where he rode three winners at one meeting), Rockhampton (where he rode three winners at one meeting), as well winners at the Sunshine Coast.

In that November 2021 conversation about making that big decision, Fradd had said, “It is what it is. I’m good with it. I’m still going … and I’m happy to keep going until I say ‘enough.’

“I do know my career is probably coming to an end. I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t have much time left … probably another year. I wouldn’t say I am easing myself out of it. I’m still quite happy to take a full book of good rides but, when the time comes to hang up my boots, I will!”

It is now eight months later and clearly an on-fire Fradd is nowhere near to crying ‘enough.’

He is doing so well and riding on with such rejuvenated energy, and, on that basis alone, the chances are surely that Fradd will still be around for several seasons yet where his all-around high level of riding expertise and his undiminished competitive spirit will continue to add lustre to race-meetings wherever he rides.

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