In Brief
- Mickey was too tough in the Danbury Park Cup.
- Brighton Cup is the gelding's next main aim.
- All By Myself wins again in the mares feature.
Mickey Oh delivered another tough performance when taking out the $14,000 Doug Martin Danbury Park Cup (2698m) in Launceston on Sunday night.
The four-year-old gelded son of Racing Hill began well from his 10m handicap, which allowed trainer-driver Matthew Howlett to press forward three-wide in the early stages to find the spot outside the leader near the 2250m.
From there, Howlett drove a confident race on the $2.90 favourite, who took over at the top of the home straight and proved too good late for Kuzma ($9.00) by 1.7m with Jimmy The Irishman ($7.00) a further 2.1m away in a mile rate of 2:01.3s.
“He stepped away well tonight. I made some gear changes, which I hope has fixed his manners from the Golden Apple. He had a trial at the start of the week to get more practice, so hopefully, he’ll continue to improve,” said a happy Matthew Howlett post-race.
“His New South Wales campaign did him the world of good, and he’s come home a different horse. There are a few features coming up that he will be set for, and it’s great to know he handed the longer trip well. He is certainly something special,” the trainer, driver and part-owner added.
“The Brighton Cup (on 7 January in Hobart) will be the next target, then the team will re-access from that and just take it one race at a time,” Howlett said,
The win was the second leg of a training and driving double for Howlett, who had success earlier in the program with Galaxy Dancer in the Betty Lee Pace (2200m)
The A Rocknroll Dance gelding had been runner-up in his previous three starts and, despite drawing barrier seven was back in from $6.00 into the $3.60 favourite who led up the one-wide line.
“He’s been racing well of late and glad to finally get a win after his last few runs getting pipped on the line. I tried to wait as long as possible before I really went for him as he likes to pull up before the line,” and pull up he did after racing several metres clear of his rivals before switching off to record a short-half head win over Justify ($5.50).
The other feature race on the program was the $14,000 Shirley Martin Mother Of Pearl, which was taken out by the Rohan Hillier trained and driven All By Myself ($1.16 fav), who led for the final mile of the race.
All By Myself won the Group 3 Tassie Golden Apple at her previous outing and is now a strong contender for the Tasmanian Mare Of The Year.
The mile rate of 1:57.8s was 0.6s outside Shes Magnetic’s 2200m mares record that was set in May 2018.