The rollercoaster ride for Beautide this season has ended on the highest of highs.
The Tasmanian bred superstar recorded back to back victories in the Gr.1 $750,000 TAB.COM.AU Inter Dominion Grand Final at TABCORP Park, Menangle today when he thrashed his rivals in the 3009m marathon.
Beautide sat parked throughout before racing clear over the concluding stages to beat Flaming Flutter and For A Reason in a time of 1;55.8.
When successful last year, Beautide sat parked winning in a time of 1;55.5.
“This is an unbelievable feeling and I can’t be any more proud of this horse, he’s an absolute star. I felt confident racing without cover and when I asked him for more at the top of the stretch, I felt him swell up and he just ran off.” A beaming James Rattray (trainer/driver) said immediately after the race.
This season, the path to glory has been vastly different compared to last year with Beautide beaten in the Miracle Mile back in November before battling a series of niggling issues that badly derailed his recent Melbourne summer carnival.
Beautide finished eighth in his only start in Melbourne, the Gr.1 Victoria Cup at Melton won by Christen Me.
But Rattray and his partner Fia Svensson were meticulous and methodical in his preparation of his Inter Dominion title defence, his stunning qualifying victory was nothing short of sensational two weeks ago.
“We’ve had our issues with him recently but we were confident we had him near perfect before his qualifier and he’s certainly trained on since that victory. He’s such a great horse and he clearly loves this track, he’d run all day.
“We’re at our new property at Exeter and we’ve done all of his lead-up work at the nearby galloping track of Bong Bong and Fia does all the work with him and she was very pleased with his final piece of work the other day.”
With triple New Zealand Cup champion Terror To Love burning the gate from his wide draw at the start, he eventually took the lead from the polemarker Lennytheshark leaving Beautide deep early.
Rattray quickly pushed forward to race on the outside of Terror To Love while David Hercules quickly came calling three-wide but Rattray kicked up and left David Hercules with no other option than to restrain.
The lead time was covered in 101.1 seconds.
With rival drivers not prepared to make any moves, Terror To Love and Beatide continued to dictate the terms with the first half of the final mile covered in 29.4 and 29.8 seconds.
Heading off the back straight, Beautide quickly joined Terror To Love and raced clear while Lennytheshark, Flaming Flutter, For A Reason and Blazin N Cullen all gave chase.
The third quarter was covered in 28.5 seconds.
In the straight, Beautide continued to build on his ever expanding margin while Flaming Flutter and For A Reason managed to fill the minor placings.
Beautide scored officially by 13.9m while a 1.5m separated Flaming Flutter and For A Reason.
The last quarter was timed in 27.8 seconds.
Beautide becomes the sixth pacer to register back to back victories in an Inter Dominion Grand Final following on from Hondo Grattan, Gammalite, Our Sir Vancelot, Blacks A Fake and Im Themightyquinn.
The victory of Beautide takes him to third on the Australian Pacing Gold Grand Circuit leaderboard with 163 points while Christen Me leads with 230 and For A Reason with 194 points.
Next week, the final leg of the Grand Circuit season takes place with the running of the $NZ250,000 Trillian Trust Auckland Cup at Alexandra Park.
