CHANGE OF SCENERY DOES THE TRICK FOR ALLORA ENZO

By Graham Potter | Friday, May 12, 2023

Allora Enzo, a lightly raced five-year-old gelding, claimed his first career success in his second start for the Tony and Maddysen Sears stable when he won a Maiden Handicap over 1400m at Gatton on May 12.

The win had been a long time coming, arriving a full twenty-three months after he made his debut for the Steven O’Dea and Matthew Hoysted training partnership back on June 16, 2021 with Baylee Nothdurft in the saddle. (Nothdurft has long since retired).

In the nine months that Allora Enzo was under O’Dea and Hoysted’s care, the son of Proisir had shown to fair enough advantage … scoring no less than four runner-up finishes, two thirds and two fourth place finishes in eight starts, four of which were in town … but that first win remained an elusive target throughout that period of time which extended to June 16, 2021 to March 2, 2022.

Following that March run, it would be thirteen months before Allora Enzo was next sighted on the track. In-between times he had switched stables, transferring to another training partnership, that of the Tony and Maddysen Sears, who sent Allora Enzo to trial at Toowoomba on April 3, 2023.

Allora Enzo won that trial by three lengths after which the Sears camp duly sent him back into full race action nine days later … taking him straight to town to contest a Maiden Plate over 1200m at Doomben on April 12, where he finished fifth, 3.50 lengths behind the winner.

A month later, on May 12, Team Sears readjusted the sights with regard to plotting Allora Enzo’s progress, coming back from a Metropolitan meeting (at Doomben) to a Provincial meeting (at Gatton) while at the same time increasing the distance test from 1200m to 1400m.

It’s called placing your horses where they have the best chance of success … something Tony and Maddysen Sears do with some aplomb.

On this occasion everything went to script, although it was not always an easy watch.

Marked up as favourite at $2, there was only one market rival (Boom The Great was at $3.40 – other runners ranged from $10 to $101) … and it was that market rival who speared to the lead at the break (from a number two barrier draw) while Angela Jones aboard Allora Enzo (jumping from the number ten barrier) was caught out on a limb in the early stages before pushing on to sit in fourth place some three lengths off the lead.

By the 600m mark Allora Enzo was up to third … then up to second by the 400m mark … but still all of three lengths behind Boom The Great, who, at this stage, remained firmly focused on making every post a winning one.

That left Angela Jones riding hard from a long way out as she asked Allora Enzo to sustain a long run.

With Allora Enzo putting his head to one side and trying to hang out slightly early in the straight not helping matters, both horse and rider nevertheless stuck to the task of hunting down Boom The Great and that perseverance paid off over the last 150m where, with Allora Enzo now on a straight path and the leader starting to tire, the Sears trained runner was able to go past the long-time leader and really assert his authority over the concluding stages to score by a widening two length margin.

A fairly hard-earned win, having to do it at both ends, but that important first ‘kill’ was on now the scoreboard.

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