Scott Spackman will have his first runner in the $85,000 Wagga Town Plate after Romancing To Wintook out the Town Plate Prelude. The 4 year old mare, by super sire Fastnet Rock, galloped down the middle of the strait at odds of $21 to claim the win by a nose and give connections a share of the $25,000 on offer.
Scott has been training for the last 12 months and was ecstatic with the win as he part-owns the horse with 5 other owners, including his wife, Donna, Brian and Lizzie McDonald and David and Jody Harris.
Up and coming local jockey John Kissick sent Romancing To Win to the lead, with a well-timed run inside the final 100 metres and was able to hold off Albury sprinter The Monstar ($5.50) to win by a nose. When asked about the win Scott said, “Dreams come true.” Romancing To Win will now head to the Wagga Gold Cup Carnival, with the horse nominated for the feature sprint on Thursday, 1 May.
The Murrumbidgee Turf Club has increased the prizemoney for the 1200m event to $85,000 and will be offering a total of $540,000 over the 2 day carnival. The Wagga Gold Cup runs over 2000m, has prizemoney of $140,000 and in the past has attracted trainers such as Gai Waterhouse and Chris Waller.
Scott trained his first winner at Hillston 12 months ago and has gone on to claim 6 wins, 4 seconds and 5 thirds during that time, two of them coming from Romancing to Win.
The syndicate purchased the mare from Sydney trainer David Vandyke and she also spent time in the hands of John O’Shea before arriving in the Spackman stable. He revealed it was only by chance that the mare started at Wagga, “I had her in at Goulburn and I really wanted to go to Goulburn because I thought it was a better race for her, she’s been going very well.”
“Bottom line is she’s just a genuine little racehorse.”
Scott did not expect Romancing To Win to claim the Prelude, but that she would run her usual honest race. “I wasn’t overconfident but I thought she would run a bottler. If she ran in the top 5, I would have been over the moon, that’s the type of mare she is, she just doesn’t not try for me.”