Two-year-old “exceeded expectations”

The first bricks may have been laid on Saturday night on the path to a super season for Catch A Wave  who impressed with a front-running Ballarat win.

In only his second start Catch A Wave validated trainer Andy Gath’s huge opinion of the two-year-old, who was in a class of his own when clearing out to record a 12-metre win in the APG Vic 2YO Gold Sovereign Final.

The son of Captaintreacherous crashed the line in a 26.5s last 400 metres for reinswoman Kate Gath.

Catch A Wave  quickly justified owners Richard and Pauline Matthews’ $82,000 APG sales investment in tonight’s $40,000 Group 3.

“We really like him, but that probably even exceeded our expectations on how good we thought he was,” Kate Gath told Trots Vision.

“I thought he would have run 54ish, but I didn’t necessarily know the last quarter was a 26 something, although it did feel fast around the last corner – we were hiking.

“He felt really good and I didn’t have to turn the stick or pull the plugs, but hopefully when we have to do that there will be something there.”

And she is confident that he’ll have bigger fish to fry this season after tonight’s performance, when he led comfortably from gate four and gapped his rivals with a 28.1s third quarter before the blistering run to the line.

“It looks promising. I don’t want to get too excited, but after tonight who knows how far he can go and how he’ll go against the best ones,” Gath said.

“It’s one thing to have one to be really impressed by, but it’s always that next step to take on the best ones. He hasn’t had a lot of racing or anything like that, so who knows when he gets there.

“He certainly feels like he’s got it all to make it down the track, but time will tell I guess.”

Catch A Wave is paid up for November’s Breeders Crown and December’s Vicbred Super Series, as well as Australian Pacing Gold, all great earning opportunities for his owners Richard and Pauline Matthews as well as breeders Benstud and Peter and Zilla O’Shea.

“He was quite a decent priced yearling, so it’s good for Richard and Pauline, who put so much money into the sport – they breed so many horses every year, they go to the yearling sales every year, and to see them get a bit of success like this, it couldn’t happen to better people and more deserved people in the spot,” Kate Gath said.

“Hopefully he can get a few more of these big races down the track and that will be really great, he’s a quality horse and I think we will aim for those at this stage.”

To view all of the results from Ballarat on Saturday night click here.

By Michael Howard for HRV