Sparkling Success and Gavin Lang take out the Empire Stallions Vicbred Super Series 4YO Trotters E&Gs Final.
Press mentions of John Meade can now preface the respected Cudgee horseman’s name with “Group 1 winning trainer”.
His homebred four-year-old gelding Sparkling Success, a son of Great Success out of Diamond Insitu, produced a last-stride dive tonight at Melton to edge out Jodi Quinlan’s Illawong Armstrong in the Group 1 Empire Stallions Vicbred Super Series four-year-old trotting entires and geldings final.
Driven by Gavin Lang, who is certainly no stranger to top-level glory, Sparkling Success angled behind Illawong Armstrong from barrier two after the polemarker led early.
Lang was full of praise for Meade.
“I take my hat off to John and his family,” he said.
“They don’t train a great number of horses and this guy and the guy he’s got in the next race (Diamond Wes) are the first two foals of the dam, so for a guy that only trains a few horses it’s a great effort on his behalf.”
Illawong Armstrong travelled along boldly in the lead, covering the lead time in 45.9secs the first half of the final mile in 62.3secs and his third quarter in 29.5secs.
At the home corner Illawong Armstrong pinched what looked a winning break on Sparkling Success, but the south-western squaregaiter found another gear and produced a winning lunge right on the wire to score by a nostril after a 29.3secs final quarter – the mile rate 2mins flat.
RE-LIVE SPARKLING SUCCESS WINNING VICBRED GLORY
“My bloke had to dig deep to get over (Illawong Armstrong),” Lang said.
Meade was absolutely stoked.
“It’s just a thrill. This win will mean something for us … it will do something for us. I’ll wake up in the morning and I won’t be tired.”
Kyvalley Boomerang (Anthony Butt) ran on well for third, beaten 19.7m, with Save Our Pennys fourth and Bring The Action fifth.
Media enquiries:
Cody Winnell (HRV Media/Communications Manager)
t: 03 8378 0288 | e: cwinnell@hrv.org.au | tw: @codywinnell
