LONGFORD trainer Karl Rhodes celebrated his first winner as a trainer when his well-bred three-year-old Lord Mahinda scored an emphatic win in a maiden over 1100 metres at UBET Park Hobart today.
With top jockey Brendon McCoull aboard, Lord Mahinda showed tremendous early speed to lead and was never headed on his way to a 1-3/4 length win over Danzqui with the favourite Because a similar margin away third.
Rhodes has had his Tasmanian licence for about eight months but has had only a handful of starters.
“It’s great to finally get my first winner over here and hopefully there’s plenty more to come,” Rhodes said.
“I want to thank young apprentice Kyle Maskiell for riding my horses in work and helping out around the stables.”
“The owners of this horse all came over from Melbourne to watch him run and they’ve got a real buzz today,” he said.
Lord Mahinda was arguably the best-bred horse in the race being by Redoute’s Choice out of the Anabaa mare Tango Fire.
Lord Mahinda was well backed firming from $4.80 to start $3.60.
Rhodes trained for about 10 years in Victoria before he moved to Tasmania about a year ago and he was The Cleaner’s trackwork rider for the months leading up to him racing in Group races in Melbourne including the Cox Plate.
The first two winners were first staters with the Ian Hay-trained Nissky (Strategic-Lavnova) also scoring impressively with David Pires aboard.
The John Blacker-trained Jazzy’s Choice led but she was taken, under instruction, to the inside rail in the home straight while the winner headed to the outside fence as did the runner-up Gee Gee Sun Valley.
All three placegetters were facing the starter for the first time.