Blackadder wins Polytrack Championship with Mr Fortrus
Mr Fortrus (Magnus) has made his presence felt in the South Island since joining trainer John Blackadder’s Rangiora barn earlier this year, and he furthered that with victory in the $75,000 Polytrack Championship (1200m) at Riccarton on Wednesday.
The now seven-year-old gelding joined Blackadder as a two-win horse from Ben and Ryan Foote’s Cambridge barn and he made the perfect start for his new handler when winning over 1200m at Riccarton’s polytrack in rating 65 grade in June.
He backed that up last month with a runner-up effort on the same track before running sixth at Oamaru when reuniting with northern hoop Jasmine Fawcett.
Fawcett was once again in the saddle on Wednesday where she was positive out of the gates and pushed her charge forward to sit outside pacemaker Holdem (NZ) (Ace High). Mr Fortrus collared the leader with 300m to go and went on to score by three-quarters of a length over a fast-finishing Tumuch (NZ) (Satono Aladdin).
Blackadder was thrilled with the win.
“It is marvellous, I am so rapt,” he said. “It is one of the bigger ones that I have won, it’s great.”
Fawcett was just as pleased to get the win for Blackadder and Mr Fortrus’ connections.
“John had this horse well prepared for this race today, he has got the horse peaking at the right time,” she said.
“I think that run at Oamaru for us to get to know each other gave us a huge benefit leading into today’s run.
“The key to today’s race was being where I was outside the leader and the horse has got that natural speed. We got the luck in the running to make that decision.”
Blackadder said Mr Fortrus will now head for a freshen-up and he will let the dust settle after Wednesday’s win before identifying his next target.
“We will give him a couple of weeks break now and there are some nice 1200m races coming up,” he said.
Mr Fortrus was initially purchased by the Hong Kong Jockey Club for A$200,000 at the 2021 Melbourne Premier Yearling Sale, and he has now won four of his 19 starts and earned just shy of $105,000 in prizemoney.
