Who needs to buy million dollar plus yearlings?
Not Hawkesbury trainer Jackie Greentree, who was successful at yesterday's feature Mona Lisa Stakes meeting at Wyong with a $2000 bargain having his first start.
The majority of punters expected the Provincial Maiden Handicap (1100m) to be won by a Hawkesbury-trained horse as another debutante, Brad Widdup's The Act, was all the rage as a $1.45 hotpot.
But it was Greentree's Zoum Raider (Chad Schofield) who finished best to take the major prize at $14 from Wyong trainer Sara Ryan's Koios ($5.50) and The Act.
Appropriately on Father's Day, Greentree had her husband Mark – the couple run an air conditioning and refrigeration business – to thank for securing the now three-year-old online through Inglis Digital in April last year.
"Mark was looking through the catalogue and noticed this yearling by Widden Stud's Zousain (by successful stallion Zoustar), who won twice as a two-year-old at Randwick and Doomben (Group 2 Champagne Stakes) in 2018," she said today.
"He was being offered as part of a dispersal sale from another stud, and Mark convinced me to buy him, otherwise he wouldn't be in our stable.
"After getting him so cheaply, we were really taken with him as a beautiful type when he arrived.
"Zoum Raider wasn't even broken in. We got that done and took our time with him."
Greentree didn't take Zoum Raider to the races until May 1 this year when he was a despised outsider at $151 and ran ninth in a midweek 2YO Maiden Handicap (1100m) at Canterbury.
"With all the wet weather, we had to stop and start with him and missed trials," Greentree said.
"The Canterbury race was good experience and he was shin sore, so we gave him a break."
Zoum Raider showed natural improvement to beat nine rivals in a 786m trial at Warwick Farm on August 12, and Greentree set her sights on a Wyong assignment.
"Unfortunately Reece Jones, who rode him in the trial, began a suspension yesterday and couldn't take the mount," Greentree explained.
'Being a little stable, we unsuccessfully tried a few other jockeys, and fellow Hawkesbury trainer Jack Pilkington helped us out by getting Chad Schofield, who did a great job winning for us."
It had been almost four years since Greentree, who rides her own horses work, had won with Dicko's Mate at Taree on September 15, 2020.
She was at home that day nursing a fractured tailbone from a trackwork spill, but didn't miss this overdue breakthrough.
Going on Zoum Raider's performance yesterday, it won't be another four years before Greentree is back in the winning list again.
She has only two horses in work who are in racing trim – the other is six-year-old mare Heavenly Prophet (who has been placed on seven occasions for her; the latest when runner-up at Gundagai in June) – and another two 'babies' who are yet to hit the track.
