3 minute read

Jeff Brasch always thought he had a decent horse in his stable when Ideal Position won a picnic maiden, but not even he expected how far the gelding would climb the equine ladder in the space of a year.

The four-year-old saluted in the Benchmark 80 Handicap (1400m) at Rosehill on Saturday and now he's being groomed for a tilt at the $100,000 Civic Stakes in three weeks.

Brasch, a part-time trainer from Mudgee, collected the horse's first winner's cheque just 12 months ago at Gulgong - a country town 300km north-west of Sydney.

That maiden win netted $2450 – more than twice the $1100 Brasch parted with to purchase Ideal Position at a tried-horse sale earlier that year.

“He was an unraced three-year-old when we bought him in March last year,” Brasch said.

“He'd run in a few barrier trials at Warwick Farm and finished out of the placings and I just thought we could start him off in something pretty low-key out this way.

“We've just gradually let him mature, he was still quite immature and he was a little weak behind when we bought him.

“We concentrated on strengthening him up. We did a few different things with him, we jumped him a little bit just after we bought him before we put him into work and that seemed to make him a stronger horse.”

Ideal Position has breezed through his grades since saluting at Gulgong, and this campaign has exploded into a city-class galloper.

He won at on his home track at Mudgee resuming, grabbed a win in open grade at Bathurst then claimed a hat-trick when landing the Gooree Cup.

Prior to his win on Saturday, Brasch took his bargain buy down to Scone where he ran fourth.

“It takes us about four and a half hours to get to Sydney where it's only two hours to Scone and the prizemoney there of course it was a $120,000 race so it was a bit hard to knock that opportunity back,” Brasch said.

“When [jockey] Greg Ryan rode him he came back and he said that he was very unlucky not to win it because he got chopped out at the two hundred and he was only beaten a length and a half.

“The horses that ran second [Torio's Quest] and third [Triple Elegance] then raced in the Stradbroke on Saturday so the formline through that was good, we were pretty happy that we had him right for Saturday.

“I think 1400m is his best distance at the moment and I thought Rosehill with the bigger track would just suit him.

“[The Civic Stakes] is the same track and same distance and the same amount of time between races as it was between Scone and Rosehill.

“He's racing well enough to deserve a chance like that in the winter while the good horses are up in Queensland.”

A day after landing his first metropolitan win, Brasch was back where it began for Ideal Position – the once-a-year meeting at Gulgong.

This time he saddled up debutant Acazano in a maiden, and the four-year-old emulated his stablemate.

“That was exactly the race that Ideal Position won last year,” Brasch said.

“He's a nice horse Acazano. He trialled well at Narromine two weeks ago but he's such a casual horse, a big lazy sort of fella.

“It was pretty much the same scenario with him where we just wanted to start him off a bit low-key.

“[Jockey] Kody Nestor rode him and he said he just went to sleep in the middle stages, he had no idea what was going on.

“He said as soon as he shook him up a bit when he straightened he hit the line really strongly. That was a good effort by him.”