A carefully structured plan to have five-year-old galloper Wuddzz peaking on the first day of the Warrnambool carnival came to fruition when the Henry Dwyer-trained runner ran away from his rivals on Tuesday. The ex-kiwi gelding was third-up following two sound prior runs this campaign and was far too strong at the end of the 2350-metre trip, the winning margin just under four lengths in benchmark-70 grade. Jockey Ben Allen gave his gelding a soft run back in the field, working into the race at the 600-metre mark and taking over at the top of the straight. The race was over with a furlong to go, Wuddzz ploughing through the wet to put a good field away and Allen sitting up for the photo well before the post. The hoop was thrilled with the winning performance post-race. “Very testing conditions out there but he just relished it”, he said. “He was the winner a long way out. Built off the corner and we were never getting caught”. Trainer Dwyer was equally impressed with his promising son of Complacent. “He was terrific today”, Dwyer said. “He’s a lovely, clean-winded stayer this horse. He handles the wet, obviously excels on the wet. This is his time to shine over the next couple of months”.
A 2500-metre race at Flemington has been identified as the next target for this progressive stayer, stepping up to benchmark-84 company on May 20th. Fair to say we’ll all be doing a little rain dance in the lead up to that program.