Co-trainers Steve O’Dea and Matt Hoysted are certainly no strangers to success at the Sunshine Coast on a Sunday and the 2022 Easter edition saw stablemates SECRET TALES and RED RUBI win consecutive races on the program.
SECRET TALES relished the distance rise in the 1300m Class 2 Handicap, rushing from the tail of the field to claim a one-length victory under Samantha Collett.
There was a mixture of delight and relief to see the 3YO filly return to form, following a below-par campaign during the back half of last year.
During her 2YO season, SECRET TALES made headlines when she broke her maiden at the Gold Coast by a record-breaking margin of 18 lengths.
Now with three wins (including a Saturday metro scalp) from nine career starts, the daughter of SPILL THE BEANS looks well on the way to fulfilling her early promise. Given her moderate $20k price tag as a yearling, SECRET TALES has been a boon for her owners, earning more than $131k in prizemoney to date.
The penny also appears to have dropped for 4YO mare RED RUBI (pictured), winner of the meeting’s feature event in brilliant fashion.
A frenetic early tempo in the 1000m dash set the race up for a swooper and it was RED RUBI who capitalised, exploding through a narrow opening along the rails to score by 0.8 lengths.
The daughter of RUBICK was expertly handled by Boris Thornton, who may well have drawn inspiration from Nash Rawiller’s daring rails-hugging ride on Kementari yesterday at Randwick!
RED RUBI was purchased for $35k at the 2019 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale and is currently worth at least three times that figure, being a half-sister to our multiple stakes winner SCALLOPINI.
Sunday’s double elevated Proven Thoroughbreds’ number of winners for the season to 48 and 17 for 2022.