Smart four-year-old gelding Grebeni (Ocean Park) recorded his sixth career victory when running out a strong winner of the Cactus Imaging Handicap (1600m) at Randwick on Saturday.
The Gerald Ryan and Sterling Alexiou-trained son of Ocean Park had previously finished midfield in the Festival Stakes (1500m) a fortnight ago and bounced back with a gritty performance on Saturday.
Ridden by Kerrin McEvoy, Grebeni carried 53kgs to victory as he came from midfield to defeat Glory Daze (Cotai Glory) and King Of The Castle (NZ) (Castledale), in a field that featured quality gallopers Kirwan’s Lane (NZ) (Charm Spirit) and Stockman (NZ) (Tavistock).
“He gets his head out and has a crack and when things go the right way, he always runs well,” Ryan said.
“He had to do a bit of buffeting at the top of the straight to get out and get in the clear but a better barrier today, he paraded better with two weeks between runs and not four, and Kerrin knows him and rode him terrific.
“He’s a big tall skinny horse who doesn’t carry a lot of weight, but fat horses can’t run.”
A raucous bunch of owners greeted Grebeni, with 57 people sharing in the ownership.
“He has taken them on a terrific journey and they’re a good bunch of people with Tim Boland. He got them into it and away we go,” Ryan said.
Ryan and Alexiou will now look to pick off another A$160,000 race in the Maroubra Mile.
“I was thinking about going 2000m but watching that race myself, I don’t think so,” he said.
“There were a couple of races that we aimed him at this prep that he never got into and small fish are sweet. There is another mile race here on the 30th, the Maroubra Mile, which is BenchMark 100.
“So we might keep him running in that and we wont go pushing him out too far this preparation.”
Grebeni has now won six of his 14 starts, with a further four placings and A$452,975 in prizemoney. By high-class Waikato Stud stallion Ocean Park, Grebeni is out of the three-win Medaglia d’Oro mare Dubrovnik and was a $100,000 Gold Coast yearling.