Our Chain Of Command coasts home in the Winter Championship Final
Our Chain Of Command justified Dean Braun’s opinion of the classy Kiwi import with a dashing win in Friday night’s $25,000 Renown Silverware Winter Championship Final at Melton’s Tabcorp Park.
The son of Julius Caesar made it three wins from four starts for the Lara trainer when he ran his rivals off their hooves in the culmination of the series for M0 pacers.
“I’ve always had a fair opinion of him and it was good to see that the owners also got to see that as well,” Braun said.
“He had to do a bit of work early but still proved too good. Maybe he’s a step up on where I even thought he was.”
Although the four-year-old had the advantage of barrier one, he had to be used early to hold out early challengers including Stirling Charmer, Stephs Caesar and Goodtime Jasper, resulting in a slick 44.3-second lead time.
Champion reinsman Chris Alford backed off a bit when they found their spots, getting away with 32.5 and 31.7sec initial quarters, before increasing the tempo to 29.5secs for the third split.
Stirling Charmer ($7) threw down the challenge to the $1.80 favourite at the 400m, but Alford looked to have a bit up his sleeve and he found a four-metre advantage when slipped some rein at the top of the straight.
The gelding covered the last 400m in a rapid 27.4secs to secure victory in a 1:58.7 mile rate.
At the line he had 2.6m to spare over On Any Day ($20), who made the most of a cushy trip on the leader’s back, while Babyitsu ($10) flashed home once clear after travelling three-back the pegs to grab third.
Our Chain Of Command’s win was the happy part of a mixed night for Braun, who saw his classy trotting mare Heyzeal suffer an atrial fibrillation in the $20,000 Harness Breeders Vic Lightfoot Laurels.
Heyzeal couldn’t have asked for a better run at her first start since the Inter Dominion final, finding the back of Misscshells one-out in the running line, but dropped out sharply from the 650m and finished more than 200m from the winner.
That was one-time troublechild Wrath Of Rosie, who continued her remarkable rise to prominence when she ran her rivals ragged with a 2:07 win in the 2760m Group 3.
The $4.50 chance won untouched by 2.3m from False Gem ($19) with Arizona Blue ($4.80) turning in a monster effort to claim third, 6.4m from the winner, despite losing 30m with an early gallop.
