A KROPP DOUBLE AT TOOWOOMBA

By Graham Potter | Saturday, September 10, 2022

On the back of their successful Birdsville trip, the Matt Kropp stable announced their return to local action in style by taking out a double at Toowoomba on September 10 … their first meeting after Birdsville.

And they didn’t wait long to get off the mark, taking out the first race on the card, a Maiden Plate over 2150m with the four-year-old chestnut gelding Chosen Distance, who was marked up as the third favourite at $4.60.

It had been a bit of a slog getting Chosen Distance to the winner’s enclosure … this was her fourteenth start … but she did have three second placings and two third places to her credit in her previous outings, perhaps most notably in her lead-up run to this Toowoomba assignment which arguably continued the progressive run of form she had been showing in recent starts.

That runner-up finish was over 1640m and Kropp stepped up the distance test for Chosen Distance here to the 2150m … and the son of Dissident clearly thrived on the new challenge the race presented, underlining that fact in no uncertain terms by trouncing her nearest rival by 3.50 lengths.

Jockey Nathan Evans settled Chosen Distance outside the early leader Craypot ($4.40) as the field passed the winning post for the first time, before pushing the four-year-old into a clear lead on the turn, opening up a two length gap from Craypot going down the back stretch, with the balance of the field trailing all of six lengths back.

The field closed up in the sweep to the home turn with Craypot, now just three quarters of a length to the outside of the Kropp trained runner, pressurising Chosen Distance with $2.60 favourite American Pioneer also coming into the race nicely enough, a little under two lengths back in third place.

At one stage, approaching the home turn, there was almost a line of three runners but, when Craypot was the first to fall away, it was left to American Pioneer to try and reel in Chosen Distance, who had kicked, but it quickly became apparent that Chosen Distance carried too much ammunition and he gunned down the favourite in the home stretch with a sustained run that put 3,50 lengths between himself and American Pioneer and, wait for it, all of 9.80 lengths between himself and the third placed runner.

It might have taken a while, but when Chosen Distance’s win arrived, it was achieved in emphatic fashion.
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Just three races later, the Kropp stable struck again with another mare, Cold Hard Fact.

The daughter of The Factor was already a seven-time winner coming into the race … she had earlier won three-in-a-row in a particular hot streak of form in the twenty-eight days from December 31, 2021 to January 27, 2022 … and she was once again primed to fire here, third-up after a three month layoff.

Primed or not, Cold Hard Fact was unwanted in the betting, jumping at a starting price of $18, a price that was exaggerated because of the presence of a very short-priced favourite Elegist ($1.50), who had won three of his last four starts and who was bidding for four in-a-row at the Toowoomba track.

Nathan Evans took Cold Hard fact back to last in the early stages and he was still at the rear of the field, some five to six lengths back at the 400m mark, approaching the home turn.

Evans was getting Cold Hard Fact off the rail now and the five-year-old was responding well to Evan’s instruction to go forward but, to do so, she had to track wide, to the extent that she cornered a full five wide with still four lengths left to make up on the long-time leader V J Day ($10) on straightening.

With V J Day not stopping, Cold Hard Fact had it all to do, but she was courageous in taking up the challenge, slowly but surely closing ground down the centre of the track before lunging late to claim an inch perfect victory, snaring V J Day in the very last stride.

That’s eight wins now for Cold hard fact and $168 770 earned in prize-money.

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