Stonebridge Regal gelding All For Dave raced up to his recent trial victory when scoring on debut in the Prydes Easifeed Pace in Hobart on Sunday night.
The Mark Reggett-prepared pacer was installed as the $2.00 favourite after a 20.7m Hobart trial win on 18 April.
“Smiley (Paul Hill) said he had a lot of depth to him when he got off him at the trials, and he came on a lot from that trial,” explained trainer Mark Reggett.
From the pole position on Sunday, reinsman Mark Yole held the lead and dictated affairs in front before kicking away at the top of the home straight to race away and score by 6.4m in a mile rate of 1m 59.1s for 2090m.
The trainer went into the race with confidence, acknowledging that there will be improvement.
“I thought if he could hold the front, nothing could get around us.
“It was probably only the 11th time he has worked with horses around him.
“He is pretty headstrong and has got a mind of his own at times, as we saw tonight when he hit the mobile, but he has settled down a lot and there is still some fine-tuning there,” Reggett said.
The trainer is happy to find suitable races in the near future.
“We might just tinker around and find a suitable three-year-old, and then we might tip him out for a spell as he has come a long way in a short amount of time,” said the trainer.
Reggett was also keen to point out the efforts of Zane Medhurst with the gelding early in his career.
“Zane did a lot of work with him early on, and then I took over.
Just For Dave is out of the Time Stands Still mare Chloes Princess who was trained and raced by the late Dave Medhurst, with his family continuing to breed with the mare.
“It was pretty emotional as Dave raced the mare, and the family have bred out of her, there were plenty of tears after the race,” added Reggett.
The win was the first leg of a driving double for Mark Yole, who scored later in the night with Iden Miss Lucy.
Driving honours at the meeting went to premiership leader Conor Crook who drove a treble on the card with Machs Mareta, Taroona Bromac and Kenya.
That trio were all prepared by Ben Yole, who also prepared Beast Mode, Tarleton Riley and Cinocal Jamane to victory on the nine-race card.
Punters were on the board early, with Sea Double Ugrant leading to take out the opening event after some soft early sections. The gelding was backed in from $7.50 into $4.80 on the Tasracing Official Price
