There was plenty to like about the win of Henry Dwyer’s debutant Imapagethree Girl at Swan Hill last Thursday. The four-year-old daughter of Press Statement drew wide and was forced back in the early stages of the 975-metre dash, running on powerfully to arrive in time for jockey Jarrod Fry. As expected, the race was run at a solid tempo and when the leader kicked clear in the home straight, it looked as though the Dwyer-trained mare would run a nice placing on debut. But the speedy galloper had other ideas, pinning her ears back and attacking the line out in the middle of the track, somewhat against the pattern of the day. The winning margin was a neck, and pleasingly the mare was strong right through the line after running the fastest 200-metre split of the race (10.6 seconds 400m-200m). Fry was full of praise post-race. “Really nice win”, he said. “When i asked her to let rip, she showed a really nice turn of foot”.
Trainer Dwyer was impressed with his mare’s will to chase and win the race. “They say you can make ground here, it’s a long straight”, he said. “She lost probably four or five lengths on the corner coming out wide.
“They ran along and gave them a chance to finish off, but you still have to do it”.
“There’s a lot of upside”.
Imapagethree Girl will have three weeks between runs, with an 1100-metre 0-64 race looking an ideal target second-up for this galloper. She’ll have that and maybe one more run this preparation before a short spell, coming back in time to tackle metropolitan company throughout the summer months.