"Amazing. To win like that was an absolute thrill," was the reaction by trainer Brent Shirley after his charge Costa Del Magnifico impressively won the Alabar Centenary Cup at Winton on Sunday.
Not only did he annihilate his rivals winning by six lengths, he smashed the race record and fittingly became the first horse to run 3200 metres on the Winton track in under four minutes (3-59.8).
His last 800 metres off the front was a sensational 54.8 seconds.
Since travelling to Canterbury Shirley has noticed a change in the Mach Three entire.
"He went away."
"He settled and came back and felt different in training."
He's also very complimentary of regular driver Nathan Williamson who didn't over push the horse last season preferring him to find his feet.
"He was handled with kid gloves."
"Nathan knew that potentially he was a nice horse and he drove him accordingly," said Shirley.
"I just made sure he didn't make any mistakes or gallop in his races because he was pretty green."
"The best thing is that we've had standing starts and mobiles with him and he's adept at either and he's become a lot more tractable," said Williamson.
Once on the very fast Winton track yesterday Williamson knew he had a good show of winning the feature.
"He was just spot on for today."
"He just loved it out there."
"I could tell the moment he hit the track that he was on the ball."
The winning of the race came when Williamson saw I'm Full Of Excuses progressing forward with 2000 metres to run and he decided to leave the trail behind Rainbow Romance to take up the front.
"He's a great stayer."
"I thought at the 600 that we had them in a whole heap of trouble and he was just jogging it."
"So I just increased the speed."
"He's proving himself now."
The Southland record for 3200 metres of 3-57.0 and is held by Franco Ledger.
Bruce Stewart
Southland Harness Racing – Check site here
Costa Del Magnifico