Connections of BETTER YET had a nervous wait before the judge declared her the narrowest of winners at the Sunshine Coast polytrack meeting on Sunday.
With the race seemingly at her mercy, BETTER YET ($7.50) survived a late fight back from SKATER ($3.50) to scrape home by a whisker in the 1600m BM65 event, much to the delight of winning rider Nikita Beriman.
“She began well and travelled strongly with the blinkers back on,” jockey Nikita Berriman said.
“I knew we wanted to be positive. She wanted to clock off when she got to the big screen, which a lot of horses can do but I’m glad we got the bob in.”
Better Yet wins by a whisker! 📸@matt_hoysted pic.twitter.com/wnkbDuZBXW
— SKY Racing (@SkyRacingAU) August 11, 2024
The race time was almost half a second faster than the maiden over the same trip and the last 600m was 1.85sec quicker suggesting this was by far the stronger of the two events.
BETTER YET’s victory provided trainer Matt Hoysted with his 3rd winner from 11 runners since training in his own right at the start of the season.
Hoysted officially took over the Eagle Farm stables on August 1 after former co-trainer Steve O’Dea decided to retire from training. Despite a terrific reputation amongst owners and peers, there’s always that underlying pressure of what will happen when you’re on your own so it’s very pleasing to see Hoysted make such a bright start to 2024-25.
Sunday’s victory was also testament to Hoysted’s acumen, having decided to scratch BETTER YET from Monday’s Beaudesert meeting which was subsequently called off due to wet weather.
BETTER YET, a 5yo daughter of BETTER THAN READY, was an $80,000 yearling purchase from Lyndhurst Stud at the Magic Millions March Yearling sale in 2021.
She becomes our third winner for the new season, and 44th for the calendar year.
