Quality Time provided premier trainer Chris Waller with his fifth Port Macquarie Cup when claiming the $200,000 feature on Friday, putting the gelding into contention for the $2 million Big Dance on November 1.
The German import raced keenly in the early stages of the 2000m event, but his class prevailed, claiming the Cup by 1.29 lengths to the Richard & Will Freedman-trained Olympic Theatre ($20) with Our Candidate ($8.50) from the Kris Lees stable a further head away in third.
The five-year-old son of Amaron has progressed well during his second Australian preparation with Fridays’ win bringing up his third victory on the trot.
Two starts back he won convincingly at Canterbury by nearly four lengths over the 1550m trip before stepping up to 1900m at Rosehill a fortnight ago and easily accounting for his rivals with a 2.4-length win.
Tommy Berry steered Quality Time to his last start win and again partnered with the gelding on Friday, stepping out as $1.30 favourite with online bookmakers.
Berry positioned his mount perfectly one off the fence and two back in the run and although over racing a little in the early stages, he settled down the back straight.
Peeling to the outside coming into the final 400m, Berry asked the question of Quality Time who had enough left in the tank to respond, grinding his way past the front runners to take the win.
“He was very keen early on when getting out of the straight for the first time,” Berry said.
“It’s amazing. Sometimes when these horses go away, they miss that day of work while travelling and he was very fresh going to the gates.
“I even said to Andrew Adkins going back there ‘it’s going to be a tough job for me to hold this bloke today’.
“He raced keen and showed he was never getting beat coming to the corner but the way he travelled early probably took his brilliance away from him late.”
Berry suggested the blinkers might not be needed anymore.
“They might take the head gear off him now that he’s got that confidence to know what he’s doing,” he said.
“It’s an option to take them off and go to something a little less focusing like the winkers.
“I’ll leave it to him (Waller) but I got my job done so it was good.”
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