WELL bred filly Carly Seelster produced the ruin of the night to score a last-stride win in the $30,000 K & D Evicus Stakes over 1609 metres at Tattersall’s Park in Hobart on Sunday night.
With ace driver Rohan Hadley in the cart, Carly Seelster gave race favourite Delightful Lilly a 15-metre start turning for home but ran her down in the very last stride.
The judge’s margin was a nose and as connections of Carly Seelster gathered to celebrate the win the driver and trainer of Delightful Lilly was firing in an objection over the result.
Ford asked to view the finish print of the race and queried the judge’s interpretation of the result.
After a lengthy stewards’ inquiry that included consultation with the judge, Ken Duke, the all clear was given leaving Carly Seelster’s connections to celebrate.
Carly Seelster is owned by Wayne and Wendy Oliver in partnership with Rohan Hadley and trained by Max Hadley at Scottsdale.
Carly Seelster was defeated by Delightful Lilly in the Big Park Stud Sweepstakes final by Delightful Lilly and that too was in a photo-finish with only a short half-head separating the duo.
It was the trainer’s first success in an Evicus Stakes and Hadley was thrilled to have finally added the classic feature to list long list of training achievements.
“I’ve finally won an Evicus Stakes and it’s great because it was the only two-year-old feature to have eluded me,” Hadley said.
“Carly Seelster is a very nice filly and I’m sure she will be even better next season.”
“She has done a wonderful job this preparation and to be honest we always thought that whatever she did as a two-year-old would be a bonus,” he said.
Oliver explained how they almost lost the filly at birth.
“She had badly deformed legs when she was born and we are very concerned that we might lose her after she was born but thankfully her legs straightened as she matured and that was solely to do with how Max and Rohan (Hadley) looked after her in the early days,” Oliver said.