ALL THAT PIZZAZZ AND YELLOW BRICK FIGHT OUT AN EPIC FINISH IN THE WEETWOOD

By Graham Potter | Saturday, September 23, 2023

“This race means the world to me and my family.”

Those words, spoken by ten-time Metropolitan Trainer’s Premiership winner Tony Gollan after he had claimed his first success in the Weetwood Handicap with the last stride win of All That Pizzazz at Toowoomba on Saturday were heartfelt and expressed a particular level of satisfaction that has been a long time in the making.

For the Toowoomba born trainer, who cut his teeth at a track where his father was racing royalty, this win was indeed something very special … not only because it ticked a box that had been missing on his resume, but because it wrote a new chapter in the rich family history in the region.

The race was meant to belong to the Tony and Maddysen Seras trained Yellow Brick, a $1.45 favourite (in from $1.85). Yellow Brick’s dominated the betting boards to the extent that only two other runners, Situation Room, the shortest priced of the trio of Gollan runners at $7.50, and All That Pizzazz at $11 were quoted at odds of better than $16.

And it did belong to Yellow Brick for everywhere except where it mattered most.

From the get-go it was clear that Jimmy Orman had every intention to push Yellow Brick forward from the number ten barrier, but it was something of a surprise when the Sears trained runner found the lead after 200m, a position maintained at a confident gallop throughout the run to the home turn.

Even under the steadying burden of 58kg and when racing first-up after a three-and-a-half month break from race action, Yellow Brick still looked the part for most of the way down the home straight, but, from just inside the 200m mark, a real danger emerged in the shape of the hard charging All That Pizzazz.

Like Yellow Brick, the Gollan trained runner had tracked across smartly from a wide draw soon after the break and Ben Thompson then settled him in a comfortable fourth then fifth place, racing some three lengths behind Yellow Brick in the sweep to the home turn.

Swinging three wide, hard ridden and still those three lengths adrift of the lead, All That Pizzazz was resolute in the chase and he had halved the deficit with Yellow Brick by the 150m mark … and then it was a case of ears flat with a final flourish to the line … with Thompson stretched out along the neck of All That Pizzazz, asking for one last, late lunge in his quest to gun down the favourite.

The two runners went through the line seemingly locked together. It was that close that, if anything, it looked like Yellow Brick Road might have just done enough to claim the spoils, but the photo gave the result in favour of All That Pizzazz, by the proverbial whisker.

While easy to back at $11, All That Pizzazz was certainly not coming out of nowhere.

The four-year-old son of Spirt Of Boom carries an extraordinary fifty-percent winning strike-rate, with his proud record of six wins from twelve starts being further augmented by three runner-up finishes.

At the start of his career he won three out of his first four races and, after a brief three race lull in his form, All That Pizzazz bounced back to have now won three of his last five starts and he finished runner-up in the other two races.

A $70 000 purchase, All That Pizzazz has banked $642 650 in prize-money at a average of $53 554 a run.

Yellow Brick, who carried 4kg more than All That Pizzazz yet only went down by a nose, obviously lost no admirers in defeat, even if his followers felt a bit sore in the pocket afterwards.

He remains firmly set on a Silver Eagle / Golden Eagle path where he will face the biggest test of his career to date, buoyed by the prospect of huge financial rewards if the results go his way. (The Golden Eagle is a $10 million race).

Lastly, in would be remiss not to mention Doctor Zous, the eight-year-old gelding who finished in third place in the Weetwood.

While the Darryl Hansen runner couldn’t match the two runners ahead of him, who were both half his age, Doctor Zous turned in a top-lass performance to finish just less than two lengths behind the duelling All That Pizzazz and Yellow Brick, running way above the expectations implied in his $101 starting price.

So there it was … a rip-roaring Weetwood … just a whisker away from providing a dead-heat.

It doesn’t get much closer than that.

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