BETTERLETMEDANCE HITS THE MARK

By Graham Potter | Wednesday, November 15, 2023

Betterletmedance … a winner at the $15 mark, thank you very much!

Those could well have been the words of trainer David Vandyke who, as he has stated many times, loves the Better Than Ready breeding line, and the influence of that outstanding sire helped the Vandyke stable to another winner with this lightly raced filly who was winning at her fourth career start.

The win came second-up in a QTIS Three-Year-Old Maiden Plate over at Doomben on November 15.
In the two starts in her first preparation,

Betterletmedance showed to good advantage in her debut outing, finishing second in a QTIS Two-Year-Old Handicap over 1000m at her home track at the Sunshine Coast.

The next run, when stepped up to 1200m, was not as encouraging. Betterletmedance finished unplaced in what would be her second and final run as a two-year-old and she was then given a four-and-a-half month break from racing before resuming on October 29 as a three-year-old … following the same route back into her new campaign as she did when kicking off her two-year-old career by again finishing second over 1000m at the Sunshine Coast in a QTIS Three-Year-Old Maiden Plate.

And again, Vandyke targeted a 1200m contest for Betterletmedance second-up, and this time the filly relished the assignment.

Not that many were convinced that there would be major improvement to come as Betterletmedance started at the easy-to-back odds of $15 wile Certainly Can and Jonny Da Wolf vied for favouritism at the top of the betting boards at $2.10 and $2.35 respectively.

In the race itself, the riders of the two main fancies seem to think that they had nobody else to worry about. Jonny Da wolf was taken into an immediate lead and Certainly Can, similarly, was chased up wider on the track as these two runners attempted to take the race by the scruff of the neck as they led the balance of the field by two lengths halfway through the contest.

At that stage Rayn Maloney had moved Betterletmedance from an initial fifth place in the running up to fourth place, as he held a watching brief on the two frontrunners.

At the point of the home turn, Maloney pushed the Vandyke trained runner even closer, to the point that she was now a close-up third, having switched out two wide to secure a clear run in the straight.

As Certainly Can, who had raced a half-a-length back just to the outside of Jonny Da Wolf for much of the race, moved up alongside Janny Da Wolf to challenge her market rival, Maloney let Betterletmedance settle for a moment on straightening before asking his mount to start to go through her gears.

Certainly Can got the better of Jonny Da Wolf coming through the 200m mark, but the new leader came under pressure almost immediately from Betterletmedance, who Maloney had produced at exactly the right time.

For the next 100m it was a two-way battle between these runners but, inside the final 100m,

Betterletmedance’s sustained run proved to be too much for the favourite to handle and Betterletmedance duly cemented a winning advantage with Maloney even having the luxury of allowing Betterletmedance to cruise to the line over the concluding stages with the victory already in the bag.

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