TEAM SEARS HEADS THE LOCAL CHALLENGE AT THE WEETWOOD / TOOWOOMBA CUP FEATURE RACE DAY

By Graham Potter | Friday, September 22, 2023

The Toowoomba based training partnership of Tony and Maddysen Sears wouldn’t swop places with any other trainer as they head towards their biggest ‘home game’ of the season on Saturday where the Toowoomba Turf Club will host the 2023 edition of Weetwood Day.

Pride of place in the Sears equine armory is their tried and trusted warrior Yellow Brick, a six-time winner with four minor placings from only ten starts who has already racked up $1.1 million in prize-money, courtesy of wins in the inaugural running of the King Of The Mountain and the Gold Coast Guineas, with hard luck, runner-up finishes, most significantly in the $2 million Magic Millions Three-Year-Old Guineas, also adding weight to his bank balance.

Yellow Brick will tackle the Listed Weetwood first-up from a wide barrier draw with a new jockey in the saddle … Jimmy Orman replaces Ben Thompson … and he will kick off at 1200m (his last run three-and-a-half months ago was over 1600m). He will also have to give away a weight advantage to all but one of his rivals, but, with the son of The Mission’s undisputed quality already well and truly established in his relatively brief career … and with the ceiling of his ability still unknown … Yellow Brick will go out onto the track as the horse to beat in the big race.
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Team Sears will also have another horse resuming who will attract a lot of attention.

Steady Ready, a boom horse early in his career has had a full eight month break away from racing, but, if he can fire first-up with the sharpness of speed he is known to possess, he could take some pegging back in the opening race on the card.

Like Yellow Brick, the lightly raced Steady Ready has yet to finish out of the placings having a race record of two wins and five minor placings from seven starts.

Andrew Mallyon takes the ride on Steady Ready, as he does on the Red Top, the next trained runner on the card, who will look to add to his three wins in the fifth race on the card.

If all goes well for the stable, the runs of Steady Ready and Red Top could just be a preamble to a feature race win for the Sears/Mallyon combination as they team up again in the sixth race with last start winner Adelad in the Magic Millions Garden City Guineas.

Adelad comes into the Guineas as a last start, Saturday, city winner where he raced over 1500m (the first time beyond 1400m) and he is asked to extend that distance test again in the Guineas, this time up to the 1625m trip.
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But wait there’s more.

One race later the Sears camp send out two runners in the Toowoomba Cup … Red Wave (Andrew Mallyon) and Baanone (Angela Jones) … then it is Yellow Brick in the Weetwood and Maya Bay in the last.

While it is true that in racing the amount of ammunition you load up can, at times, have little bearing on what targets are hit … and there is certainly no guarantee of any success … Team Sears are clearly wound up for the challenge and there will be plenty of locals cheering them home if the results do indeed go their way.

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