MAXIMUS Red timed his sprint to perfection to salute in Wednesday's Remembering Robert Lee Pace (1,730 metres) at Bathurst Paceway, giving Amanda Turnbull back-to-back wins at the meeting in the day's top-grade events.
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The top three of Maximus Red ($2.15), Karinya Rocco ($5.50, Emma Turnbull) and Cankickatarget ($12, Brett Hutchings) were all separated by just a head, providing quite the spectacular finish for the final race of the meeting.
The meeting had been shifted across from Forbes due to COVID-19 regionalisation measures, and trainer Gary Eyre was determined to bring back one of the meeting's big prizes to his home town.
The Forbes trainer was right in the winning mix with his young three-year-old Karinya Rocco, who looked to take down his older rivals, and both he and Maximus Red started to bear down on leader Cankickatarget with 200m to run.
Brett Hutchings' Cankickatarget was within reach of an upset win but he needed to race to finish a couple of metres earlier than it did.
Maximus Red edged out the pair in the photo finish to record his first win since November.
"I thought he'd hung on. He's funny like that. He never wins by much," Turnbull said.
"He was down in grade a lot but it was always going to be tricky from the 10, and there was a fair bit of speed in it and a couple got stuck wide early.
"They were traffic for a minute but if you keep him on the bit it doesn't matter how much work he does."
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Alexander Grant
Part of the Western Advocate's sports desk in Bathurst.
Part of the Western Advocate's sports desk in Bathurst.
