The winners keep coming for Minervini Racing, as four-year-old mare Military Forces (Tickets – Military Band) scored a sensational win over 1100m at Saturday’s Morphettville meeting.
Having only acquired the then filly in June of this year, Military Forces began her career at Minervini Racing as a maiden, but that box was quickly ticked with a dominant win over the 900m on Murray Bridge Cup day, two months after Mark had sent her for a break.
Enough was thought of the win to send the mare to town at Morphettville on Melbourne Cup day, and whilst on paper it reads that she ran fifth, she ended up less than two lengths from the winner after travelling wide throughout.
Stepping up in grade, fingers were crossed all week, as Military Forces was fourth emergency and needed scratchings just to gain a run in the race. When that run came on Saturday morning it was all systems go and the mare went into the race as a well-supported each-way chance.
From the time the gates opened, no better script could have been written, with the race panning out to perfection. With a strong speed on up front, stable regular Todd Pannell let Military Forces find her feet back in the field and she travelled very strongly toward the turn, picking up ground out wide, under little urging from Todd.
As the field turned, Military Forces joined in strongly out in the middle of the track, and she charged home all over the top of her rivals and scored a soft win.
Such was the dominance of her win, she was the only galloper in the race to break 34 seconds for the last 600m (33.82s) and 23 seconds for the last 400m (22.64s) – helped of course by the strong speed up front, but quite an effort all the same.
Military Forces’ win was Minervini Racing’s sixth from their last 17 runners – an incredibly hot 35% win strike-rate since late September. The win was Military Forces’ second from 12 starts, and she takes her stake earnings to a tick over $40,000.
Congratulations to the owners – Andrew Baily, Adam Basir, David Bickmore, Paul Bock, Bright Racing (Mgr: Chris Bosley), Steven Bosley, Nathan Bull, Brett Cefai, Shae Dinunzio, Michael Farquhar, Kevin Fisher, Mark Gosling, Cail Harris, Nick House, Caleb Howell, Kilminster Racing (Mgr: Andrew Kilminster), Benjamin Leal, Andrew Lovett, Jill Rose, Paul Rosenich, Elaine Woodroff
Last 400m from today’s win – https://twitter.com/Racing/status/931763059453915136
Mark’s post-race interview – https://twitter.com/Racing/status/931764886782091264
Todd’s post-race interview – https://www.racing.com/videos/2017-11-18/morphettville-race-8–todd-pannell–181117
Daniel Borg
Minervini Media