Slow build to success for Fizzing

Prominent owner Rob Gartrell has credited training combination Greg and Skye Bond’s patient approach with four-year-old Fizzing for his success in the Botra Cup (2503m) at Gloucester Park on Friday night.

Fizzing produced, arguably, his finest performance in Friday’s $25,000 event, coming off a 30m handicap in the standing start event.

The son of Mach Three showed plenty of promised over the summer period, where he finished third in the Group 1 Golden Nugget.

Since then, Fizzing has gone on to record five wins at 12 starts, four of which were standing start events at Pinjarra.

Gartrell said it had been a strategic approach to keep Fizzing to standing start events, in order to find out more about the horse.

“His first campaign with us, we learnt a lot about him and we threw him in the deep end a little bit quickly,” he told TABradio.

“This time coming back we decided to take the standing start approach.

“He just got better and better with each run at Pinjarra.

“He’s obviously been well placed and to top it off with the BOTRA Cup was an excellent result for us.

“Hopefully going forward we can see him continue to improve.”

Fizzing capped off a terrific night for the Bond stable, who scored wins with Poisedtopounce, Better Scoot and USA-bound Saying Grace.

Meanwhile, Ana Malak, who defeated Fizzing in the Golden Nugget, has returned to Western Australia following seven starts in Victoria.

Connections are hopeful the winner at 11 of his 16 starts could progress to feature races in the New Year.

“We tossed up what to do with him,” Gartrell said.

“The handicapping suited him there in that he didn’t have to race against the top end horses.

“He will have a short freshen-up now and push on to the races around Christmas.”

Elsewhere, WA Derby winner Major Trojan could make his return to racing this Friday night in the Chandon Pace (2130m).

Major Trojan won a three-year-old trial at Byford yesterday, defeating newcomer to the Gary Hall Snr stable Wildwest by 3.9m.

Tim Walker