Mat Rue is confident the Dubbo-trained Big Bill has more wins on the horizon after seeing his development firsthand on Wednesday night.
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Rue drove the Peter Gavin-trained Big Bill to victory in the second heat of the Gilgandra Windmill (1720m) series, the race sponsored by Joe Shalhoub Pelican Glass.
The pair are now set for the December 3 final and Rue thinks he’ll be a genuine contender.
“I really like driving this horse. He’s got good gate speed early and he gets himself in the picture and always tries hard,” he said after the win.
“He’s going to win a lot more races than that.
“The first time I sat behind him about six months ago you’d swear it was his first day on the bike. He was just everywhere but he still went well and he’s improving every run and I think he’ll continue to do so.
“Pete’s done a good job with him because he wouldn’t have been an easy horse to work with.”
Despite being a hot $1.20 favourite and leading from start to finish, it wasn’t all straight forward for Rue.
Big Bill proved there’s still more to be learned when becoming distracted at times during the race and there were a number of challengers who loomed late.
“He was having a good look at things on the infield today too, he wasn’t concentrating too well but he still got the job done,” Rue said.
Big Bill won by 1.2m from Red Hot Jerry ($14.60) while Boyzinblue ($13.40) was third.
The victory followed on from Siotada’s eye-catching win in the first heat while the third and final qualifier was taken out by the Amanda Turnbull trained-and-driven Taihape Sunset ($1.60 favourite).
Taihape Sunset showed class in his win, scoring in a milerate of 1:59:0.