Article via The Herald Sun featuring Kevin and Kay Seymour, two great clients of TJ Sears Racing.
NOBODY has given more to harness racing than Kevin Seymour.
So it’s fitting in his 50th year in the sport as an administrator, sponsor and leviathan owner-breeder that he landed his most satisfying win with Colt Thirty One in Saturday night’s Group 1 Victoria Derby at Melton.
In Seymour’s own words:
“This is the best. It doesn’t get any better.”
It sounds a big call in the moment given he’s won so many big races, most notably an Inter Dominion and Hunter Cup with Mr Feelgood, but the emotions ran deeper with Colt Thirty One for Seymour and his wife, Kay.
“We bred this fella. We watched his first start, we followed him through the grades and Grant (Dixon, trainer-driver) kept telling us he was special,” Seymour said.
“As a two-year-old Grant thought he was good enough to take to Sydney for the (Australian) Gold, but things didn’t work out.
“It was always a long range plan to take him to Melbourne for the Derby.
“It’s the first Victoria Derby I’ve won and I can’t recall another Queenslander winning it.”
Just for good measure, most considered this the strongest Victoria Derby for a decade the winning time underlined that.
Colt Thirty One smashed Lazarus’ 2016 race record. His 1min54.2sec mile rate for 2240m took 1.3sec off Lazarus’ time. And it stacked-up well with the 1min52.5sec track record set by Lazarus in the 2016 Victoria Cup.
“Beating Lazarus’ time certainly adds to how the special the win is,” Seymour said. “Kay and I have been lucky enough to have some great moments in this sport, but this is the best of the lot.”
The fireworks started from the very start when Maraetai, Spankem and unbeaten hot favourite Lumineer burned through a 43.1sec lead time.
To give that perspective, Lazarus’ lead time in that track record Victoria Cup win was only 44.2sec.
It was clear Lumineer and those who burned with him early, were sitting shots.
The All Stars’ The Devils Own launched the three-wide train without cover, Poster Boy grabbed his back and Dixon found a way out of a nasty pocket to follow Poster Boy.
They steamrolled past the leaders rounding the home turn and, just when it seemed Poster Boy was home, Colt Thirty One stormed past him to win by 1.2m with another three metres away to a gallant The Devils Own.
Spankem held on well for fourth after trailing the leader, while Lumineer’s eight-race unbeaten streak ended with a sixth placing.
Colt Thirty One, like many of his rivals, now heads to Sydney for the NSW Derby heats and final on February 17 and 24.
Article via The Herald Sun
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