Talented pacer Sorridere has frustrated leading trainer-reinsman Aiden de Campo over the past year, and a change in the preparation of the WA-bred six-year-old has led to an immediate result, with de Campo driving the $11.20 chance to victory in the $31,000 Nox World Cup over 1730m at Gloucester Park on Friday night.
His victory when he surged home from eighth at the bell to defeat Franco Encore ($11) and Better Eclipse ($3.50) ended a 14-month drought and a losing sequence of 17.
“I thought Sorridere was my best horse coming out of his four-year-old campaign in which he ran second (to Mister Smartee) in the Golden Nugget,” said de Campo.
“I gave him a spell in the following winter but couldn’t get him right. And now after another spell he has come back a fair bit better this time, running a few good placings.
“However, I was getting a bit frustrated with him and after last week (when ninth behind Star Casino) I thought he was too fresh and pulled hard after a month off, so I changed a few things and started riding him, to change his mind.
“This was the first time he has been ridden, and I rode him around the track at home four days in a row leading up to tonight’s race.”
Sorridere began out wide at barrier seven and de Campo was happy to keep him near the rear before he sustained a sparkling last-lap burst, with final 400m sections of 28.1sec. and 28.4sec. He hit the front 100m from the post and won by a metre, rating 1.53.5.
“I have always considered he was a better stayer than a sprinter, but the way he went tonight should earn him a start in the Village Kid Sprint next Friday night,” said de Campo.
Sorridere now has earned $235,108 from 14 wins and 17 placings from 52 starts.
Last-start winner Minos was the $3.30 favourite from the No. 1 barrier in Friday night’s race, but he was beaten for early speed by $17 chance Longreach Bay, who set the pace before wilting to finish tenth. Minos was a close-up fourth.
Sorridere, a gelding by American sire Sunshine Beach, is raced by Rob Tomlinson’s Oz-West Pacing in partnership with Damien Keating and Peter Morris.
Oz-West Pacing and Morris were successful later in the night when they were part-owners of Maungatahi, a $7.70 chance who overcome the back mark of 40 metres to score a thrilling win in the 2503m Team Bond Handicap.
Maungatahi, trained and driven by Dylan Egerton-Green, was last in the field of eleven before he sustained a powerful burst, out three and four wide in the final circuit to hit the front in the home straight and win by a length from the pacemaker Eclipse Line ($5.50).
