Benalla is becoming a happy hunting ground — for Seymour trainers.
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They took out another double in Thursday’s seven-race card with the red-hot Goodwin stable landing one of those with Albert’s Lass in the $22000 Benalla Timber Products M58 over 1606m.
Since January 12 Goodwin has saddled four winners and two place getters from nine starts.
The run began with Thursday’s winner Albert’s Lass smashing a picnic field at Healesville by 12 lengths.
And proved way too good at Benalla for a much stronger field in the fifth on the card after enjoying an ideal run from go to whoa.
Albert’s Lass got into a good position one out and one back, exactly where Goodwin wanted it to be.
The $71 longshot Flirtatious Femme led them into the turn out of the back straight but with the field ambling along rider Jarrod Fry decided to go a bit early.
As they straightened off the bend the bolter faded and Rhythmic Queen temporarily put her head in front before Albert’s Lass ranged up alongside and took over the running.
She broke clear and looked home and hosed before a late run down the middle of the track by Casino Star, but even flat out in pursuit Albert’s Lass held it off easily.
The five-year-old bay mare was strongly supported, sent out at $3.80 and proved worth every penny of it.
Stable representative Reece Goodwin said picnics or professionals, they have got Albert’s Lass flying.
‘‘She’s been on pretty good form since we got her and we have been rapt with her,’’ Goodwin said.
‘‘We have also kept the runs nice and spaced and we’ve done a pretty good job with her I reckon.
‘‘The race panned out just the way we wanted and sitting one out and one back leaves so many options.
‘‘Right now we are looking forward to the winter with her, she’s a nice wet tracker and who knows; we might pick up something good at a midweek meeting.’’
Goodwin said the stable had also purchased a string of horses at New Zealand’s Karaka bloodstock sale and were now looking to sell or syndicate them.
Winning jockey Fry said while the plan worked out well the field ‘‘probably didn’t go as hard as I thought so it probably exposed her a little earlier than I would have wanted’’.
But he said the horse travelled strongly throughout.
‘‘With the tempo at which it was run we were always handy throughout but she did get a bit lost being so far out in front on her own yet when the second horse kept coming she did rebuild her own momentum and when she did that was always going to be hard to beat,’’ Fry said.
In the $23000 O’Halloran’s Garage Doors Plate over 1406m the beautifully bred Americain Rock (sired by 2010 Melbourne Cup winner Americain and foaled by And Rock, a Fastnet Rock bred mare) broke its maiden after six previous unplaced runs.
The field jumped fairly evenly but by the time they settled Americain Rock was well back in the pack.
At the 600m mark the four-year-old gelding still had the job in front of him as picnic regular Wallach bowled along in front.
It stole a couple of lengths as the field straightened and race caller Ric McIntosh had barely mentioned Americain Rock.
But as the field straightened rider Mitchell Aitken switched to the fence as most of the horses drifted wide and started stalking the leader.
Getting right into the clear at the 200m mark Aitken flicked the switch and, although 100/1 shot Wallach didn’t want to give up, with less than 50m out Americain Rock got there and won by three-quarters-of-a-length.
Trainer Steve Brown said they were a little worried about the tightness of the track but that was offset by a nice long straight
Brown said the horse had run really well at Sandown (finishing fourth in a field of nine on January 28) so he was ‘‘surprised coming here there wasn’t more interest in him’’.
The horse started at 14/1 and paid $15.60 on Supertab.
‘‘It looked like a really good ride to me,’’ Brown said.
‘‘Americain runners are taking a little more time to mature — I actually told the owners I thought it might be a bit short today,’’ he said.
‘‘He has been plagued by neck problems so we will see how he pulls up before we look at what’s next for him.’’
Aitken agreed the horse would appreciate longer runs in the future.
‘‘At 600m out I felt he was travelling well but didn’t think he’d get there like he did,’’ he said.
‘‘We were lucky most of the horses kept heading off the fence.’’