3 minute read
He may be a small package but he sure packs a punch.
Brighton, the little guy with the big attitude, showed he has a heart to match his spirit when he out-toughed class mare Capella in a desperate finish to the Pukekohe Dental sponsored rating 85 1400 metre contest at Ellerslie.
A stakes winner as a two-year-old on the course, Brighton had been mixing his form of late but put that aside with a performance that may have earned him a start at Group One level for his next assignment.“He’s not very big, he’s only 14.3 (hands) but he thinks he’s 16.3,” noted trainer Nigel Tiley after the race.
“He’s got a great heart and he deserved to win that.”Tiley hasn’t been afraid to tackle elite company with the Buffalo Man gelding and has plans for a sneak attack on the Gr. 1 Sistema Railway at Ellerslie on New Year’s Day.
“I had a gut feeling I should put him in the Railway, which I have done,” he said.“He would get in pretty well weighted and the way the Railway is run, it’s a real pressure race, a horse like him could get them from the back.
“That’s a good field today so he’s done us proud.”Capella started favourite in the contest after some inspired support saw her backed in to $3 on the TAB Fixed Odds market. The Rip Van Winkle mare was having her first start since disappointing in the Gr. 1 Windsor Park Plate back in September and only went down by a nose after a titanic struggle with the winner. The return to form will delight her connections as the big summer stakes races loom over the next two months.