Wonderfully consistent mare Glamour Tycoon showed all her fighting qualities to down a talented field of open class sprinters and capture her fifth career victory in the Bayleys Mount Maunganui (1300m) open handicap at Tauranga.
The daughter of Written Tycoon has fashioned an enviable record that has seen her out of the first three placings on only six occasions in her 20 starts to date and that record was extended on Saturday in the hands of rider Wiremu Pinn.
Pinn jumped her away nicely from an inside draw to stalk pacemaker You Say D’Orsay through the first 900m of the contest.
Angled off the rail rounding the home bend, the four-year-old wobbled a little until balanced up by Pinn to begin a determined finishing burst. Glamour Tycoon put her head in front at the 150m before easing clear to win by half a length from the late closing Mosinvader, who snatched the runner-up position from You Say D’Orsay at the winning post.
Trainer Stephen Marsh paid tribute to the toughness of his charge, although he admitted she gave him a bit of a scare rounding the home bend.
“She jumped and I thought she was going to get a soft lead, but she was taken on so he (Pinn) went to the trail,” Marsh said.
“She swung out a little bit wide on the turn, which had me worried, but she is a bloody good mare as she’s tough and has had to carry 58.5kgs in a nice field.
“I think there are some nice races ahead of her now.
“We went 1300m today as I thought it was a nice race, but now we will look at Counties in late November as there is the mares’ 1400m (Gr.2 Auckland Thoroughbred Breeders’ Stakes) or an open 1100m (Gr.3 Counties Bowl).
“We will keep our options open but she is a high-class mare and has won a couple of stakes races with some more big races to come.”
Pinn was suitably impressed by the performance of his mount.
“She is a pretty good horse who has won well, but still did a few things wrong,” he said.
“She made the corner quite awkwardly, was on the wrong leg and has had to give the other horse (You Say D’Orsay) quite a bit of weight.
“She is only a small filly, so it was a good win and I think she has bigger fish to fry.”
Bred by Diamond Park Breeding and Racing, Glamour Tycoon is out of the Foxwedge mare Glamour Gal who is a half-sister to the Gr.2 Doomben Roses (2000m) winner Etana.
She races in the colours of part-owner Dennis Foster’s Bourbon Lane Stable and has now won five of her 21 starts and $315,710 in stakes.