SWAMPED by the Raging Sea - that was the tale of the 2020 Bathurst RSL Soldiers Saddle Final on Saturday night at the Bathurst Paceway.
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With Brad Hewitt in the gig, the Raging Sea had to fight for the lead early but once in front was never headed as he went on to win the annual feature in race record time.
The 1:53.9 mile rate in the 1,730 metres feature bettered the old race record of 1:54.1 clocked by Amanda Turnbull's Eliza Dushku in 2017.
And given Hewitt admitted his $3.70 chance relaxed for a moment down the home straight, it showed how just how strong Raging Sea had been. His journey included a blistering 27.1 seconds split for the third sectional.
"He switched off a bit when he got away from them, but in saying that he did a fair bit of work," Hewitt said.
"He's a pretty nice little horse. He's sort of better when he's doing his own thing ... he's naturally a strong horse."
Before the David Hewitt, Goulburn trained Raging Sea, who had placed second in his saddle heat 10 days earlier, got to show how strong he was, the field had to make three attempts at a start.
Firstly Gemma Hewitt's Keayang Kreuzer caused a false start and when waiting for the second go-around, reared up again.
The legs of one the more fancied runners in the field buckled and he walked backwards into the ditch alongside the track, very nearly tipping Gemma Hewitt from the gig.
Fortunately she wasn't tossed and Keayang Kreuzer did not hit the ground, but he was scratched after causing a second false start.
When the green light finally was given the speed was on immediately, with horses working three and four wide into the first bend. It was Raging Sea who eventually settled in front.
As the bell sounded Amanda Turnbull's $2 favourite Balducci rolled up on the outside of Raging Sea, the first quarter covered in 28 seconds.
With 500m to go the gap between that pair was around 3m and while Raging Sea had done plenty of work, he kept giving. As he hit the final bend the margin had grown to 10m.
Balducci closed that gap halfway down the straight as Raging Sea appeared to tire, but he kicked again to give the David Hewitt, Brad Hewitt trainer-driver combination a winning double for the meeting. They had also take out the race prior with Im Bruce Almighty ($4.20).
Raging Sea took his record to five wins from 12 starts as he beat the favourite by 4.9m, with Aalesund ($34, Josh Gallagher) a further half neck back in third.
