Melbourne, May 8 – Scoring a dominant win at Sandown on Wednesday was Fastnet Rock five year-old Big Bear Rock, a $140,000 Inglis Easter purchase for his trainer Stephen Brown from the Yarraman Park draft.
First up from a spell after pulling up lame when last in the Group III MRC Standish Handicap earlier in the year, Big Bear Brown showed he was back to his very best when travelling up on the pace and forging clear to win by two and a half lengths in a brisk 55.61 seconds for the 1000 metres.
Stephen Brown explained the previous failure revealing everything went wrong in the Standish from the time Big Bear Rock arrived at the barriers.
He said that jockey Luke Currie told him that the gelding literally ran into the back of the barriers before trailing in at the tail of the field on that occasion.
“The vet said he may have pulled a muscle in his shoulder,” Brown said.
“Look, I’m not sure if we’ll see the best of him because he has a lot of problems.”
Big Bear Rock has the overall record of four wins and four seconds from 11 starts with prizemoney topping $109,000.
Big Bear Rock is a half-brother to Group III winner Speedy Natalie from stakes-winner Speedy Bell, whose yearling filly by Al Maher was sold by Yarraman Park for $320,000 at the 2013 Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale.
