Ciaron Maher has been a hard man to beat this Spring Carnival, which is what made Thursday’s Melbourne Cup Carnival Country Final so important to the likes of Dom Sutton.
It is a $500,000 race that is the culmination of a series that takes in heats at country tracks restricted to horses trained by Victorian trainers who have not had more than 15 winners for the season, meaning Maher and a number of Australia’s other biggest stables are ineligible.
Sutton was delighted to see his plan to target it with Sulek come off.
“I was saying in the pre-race interview that it is nice not to run into the likes of Ciaron Maher,” Sutton said with a laugh, in reference to his counterpart who trained the trifecta in Tuesday’s Melbourne Cup.
“It’s a really good initiative and we got the result.”
Sulek, a four-year-old son of Super Seth who started $5.50 favourite, responded to Billy Egan’s urgings to wear down Wetumpka ($9.50) and score a three-quarters-of-a-length win. Third, one length away, was Rosa Aotearoa ($7.50).
Sulek’s win in the Final came after victory in the Geelong heat, which was run on Geelong Cup Day.
Englishman Sutton has a lot of his countrymen in the ownership of the horse he bought for $420,000 at the New Zealand Ready To Race Sale in 2024 and was delighted to get what have been successful colours back in the winner’s stall on a big day.
“It was always a plan from the get-go to try and get him here,” he said.
“We’ve got a big group of owners here from all around the world, from the UK and New Zealand.
“They’ve flown in and he runs in Stuart Andrew’s colours. They’ve actually won the Grand National back in the UK, these colours, so they’re very lucky and I’m just over the moon to have got the result.”
The Country Final win was Sulek’s third from 11 starts and the $275,000 winner’s cheque lifted his career earnings to $415,325.
