The Desleigh Forster-trained Apache Chase is off to the Stradbroke after lowering the boom on Ayrton in Saturday’s $250,000 Group III Fred Best Classic (1400m) at Eagle Farm.
Jim Byrne set off on a solid gallop on the son of Better Than Ready and had the majority of the field off the bit and chasing rounding the home turn.
Though on tired legs in the final stages, Apache Chase staved off the challenge of the odds-on Ayrton (Iffraaj) by a head with a short-half-head back to Amish Boy (Star Witness) in third.
It would be hard to offer an excuse for the previously undefeated Ayrton, who enjoyed a dream run in third place.
The winner of the Listed Daybreak Lover Plate and the Group III Vo Rogue Plate over the same track and distance, Apache Chase came to the Fred Best off a second-place finish to Prive Eye in the Group II Queensland Guineas (1600m) on May 1.
“I said that there is more than one horse in this race. This is a good horse,” Forster said.
“He makes his own luck, gets out and does the hard yards. He has only been beaten on wet tracks. He is a serious horse and whatever he is doing now, he will improve again.
“I didn’t come here hoping, I was very confident. All I wanted was to draw inside. Mattie O’Connell rides him work and he said on Tuesday they would want to bring their A game.
“Jimmy Byrne has been confident for weeks. He said ‘bring it on’.
“Look at his record at 1400m. Three goes for three wins.
“As long as he pulls up we will go to the big dance in two weeks and then we will have to sit down and find someone that can ride at 49.5kg.”
Purchased by his owner Michael Sherrin for $50,000 out of the Eureka Stud draft at the 2019 Gold Coast March Yearling Sale, Apache Chase advances his record to five wins, a second and a third from seven starts with earnings of $691,625.
A half-brother to Churchill Downs (Danehill), who won the 2006 Group II MVRC Bill Stutt Stakes and runner-up to Mirror Mirror in the Magic Millions 2yo Classic, Apache Chase is the eleventh and final foal of the imported Diesis mare Siking Whisper (USA).
Foaled when his dam was 20, Apache Chase is one of five stakes-winners for Lyndhurst Stud’s Better Than Ready. The son of More Than Ready stands a t a fee of $33,000 in 2021.
