BEN THOMPSON AND THAT KING OF THE MOUNTAIN WIN

By Graham Potter | Sunday, January 1, 2023

Few would know Yellow Brick, the King Of The Mountain winner, better than Jockey Ben Thompson who has ridden the son of The Mission in four of his six career starts to date for three wins.

Speaking on the Sunday, the day after Yellow Brick’s New Year’s Eve success, Thompson was full of praise for both the Tony and Maddysen Sears trained runner and the Sears Training Partnership as he put the three-year’s career in perspective.

“Obviously, he has only been racing a small amount of time and has had six starts. All he can do is beat the opposition he is racing against and in five of those times he has,” said Thompson.

“He is just a smart horse. He makes his own luck ... and, albeit, when he won the three consecutive runs in his last preparation, his lead was never really contested, if you go back through the form he has beaten Soothsayer twice, Boom Court, Count De Beans ... all these nice horses which have gone on to win.

“Soothsayer after finishing behind Yellow Brick twice won three in a row, including Saturday grade races, and has emerged as a serious Magic Millions’ Guineas horse ... so Yellow Brick ticks a lot of boxes and just his whole demeanour ... he is a very good sort, very good to look at. he just gives you a great feel and he has a good set of lungs ... so I thought he ticked all of the boxes to run well going into the King Of The Mountain.

“After winning at a mile last prep, you could have said, well, is 1200m going to be too short, but all the credit to Tony, Maddysen and Leigh Sears for having the horse spot on,” continued Thompson.

“Bree Wiblen, who rides him trackwork in the morning, was just given him some work on Saturday morning and he apparently got very excited ... almost that excited that she thought she was going to part ways with him, but it all ended well.

“I think that probably comes back to the training effort by the Sears team. They had him so spot on that come race-day he was ready to go.”

And how did Yellow Brick cope with the distraction at the gates when Kisukano unfortunately became cast and had to be withdrawn, necessitating a delay of six minutes before the race got underway?

“He did get pretty upset, but I kept him on his own,” answered Thompson. “I didn’t let the attendant put a lead on him.

“He sort of wanted to jump around and I wanted to let him do that. There is nothing worse than trying to restrain them too much. I just let him get it out of his system and once we we’d been in the barriers for about a minute, then he came back to where I felt he was the first time we loaded.

“He stood in the gates really nicely. He jumped away brilliantly. He made my job pretty easy.

“I did give him a little squeeze out the gates but then I just let him use his pace ... and pretty much after we’d gone thirty metres or so, you could say I was pretty much a passenger.

“We got across as easy as could be. He found his own spot. Steady Ready showed his customary pace and Alpine Edge and Argyle Lane were in behind us. Once we got there, I thought we had the chance to produce our best.

“I think we broke the track record (1.10.69), but it didn’t feel like we were going that fast.

“I obviously knew Steady ready would take me a long way into the race ... and I have also found that to ride a horse at Toowoomba who is trained at the track, or who, at least, has raced there is an advantage.

“He works on that track every morning and it showed. He was just so well balanced.

“You can see ... I think it is about the 550m ...he went to pull himself into the race and I’ve actually pulled him back a bit. I thought, no ... not yet ... and I waiting another one hundred metres until the 450m.

“I couldn’t underestimate Steady Ready, albeit it was only his second go at 1200m after a defeat, but in his backyard he was given every chance by Angela Jones, but once Yellow Brick straightened up, he showed a great turn of foot and off he went.

“We were confident beforehand ... but that is not to say we thought he would go there and win like that. That was just the dream to do that.

“There was just so much excitement in the camp ... for both the Sears trained runners (Yellow Brick and Steady Ready). It was a question of lining them up in the race to see what they could do against older horses ... it was the first time that both of them had raced out of three-year-old company.

“The result just proved how good they are.

“Running first and third was a massive effort by the Sears family. I know they screamed the horse home. I didn’t hear them because I was in the zone on the horse ... but, who is to say Yellow Brick didn’t hear them. Maybe that’s why he went to the line like he did.

“They are racing lovers as we all are. They are passionate about their work, and they love their horses so much.

“It was the biggest race ever to be run in Toowoomba and it was very special being part of a local win and sharing that with the Sears family.

To win the inaugural running of the King Of the Mountain with them ... it was something really special.

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