See You In Heaven (+230) has proven too strong for her rivals in the Group 3 Behemoth Stakes for the second straight year, with the Richard & Chantelle Jolly-trained mare saluting for favourite backers in the feature race at Morphettville on Saturday afternoon.
The daughter of Divine Prophet was a dominant winner in the same race 12 months ago, and after settling towards the rear of the field, she showed her customary finishing burst to run over the top of her rivals in the final 200m.
Struck By (+2200) and Karacasu (+800) led the field along and set a cracking tempo for the 1200m contest, setting it up for the winner and placegetters, who settled in the back half of the field and were well off the pace.
Jake Toeroek couldn’t have given the winner a better ride, as he allowed her to balance up on the outside of runners before asking for the ultimate effort.
Once she was given a slap with the whip by Toeroek, See You In Heaven let down with a blistering turn of foot to gobble up the leaders, and she booted clear to win dominantly from My Khalifa (+3000) and Air Assault (+3000), who just held on for third place.
2024 Behemoth Stakes replay – See You In Heaven
Richard Jolly represented the stable in the post-race interview, and he was very happy with the way that his mare won.
“It’s great to see her win like that; I really thought she was underdone, basically,” Jolly said.
“When I saw her playing up in the mounting yard, I thought ‘she is on’ because she is a bit hard to read now.
“She never trials brilliantly, and she’s a bit of a dud worker, to be honest, but Tuesday she worked pretty good for her.
“To see her do that, and for my thinking, she is nowhere near ready, is really exciting.
“I really want to go to the Leon MacDonald in two weeks, then she has two runs at home under her belt and then we can look at the rest of the spring.”
Jake Toeroek echoed Jolly’s thoughts about the trial, but he was very happy with the result on raceday.
“I actually had my reservations about her today after her trial,” Toeroek explained.
“I thought she trialled abit ordinary for her and I thought she might just really need the run today, especially from that gate.
“When I lobbed where I did and she travelled so sweet, I knew I was the winner at the 600 (metres).
“She just cruised me into it so well.
“I definitely was (kind to her late), not to say she would have pulled away any further, but she definitely would have run through the line a lot better if I was a bit harsher on her.
“Hopefully improvement is there, which we know, it’s just a matter of keeping her sound now and we know she’s a very classy horse.”
Horse racing news
