Ken Casellas | Photo: Hamilton Content Creators
Banjup trainer Murray Lindau sighed with relief at Gloucester Park on Friday night when Talks Up A Storm bounced back to good form with a victory in the 2130m Perth APG Yearling Sale Pace — two weeks after he was bewildered at the five-year-old’s extremely disappointing fading fifth behind Mirragon when he was a hot $1.24 favourite.
Talks Up A Storm, who led in that unplaced effort, was the third favourite at $4.50 on Friday night when he started from the No. 5 barrier. He began speedily for Kyle Harper and dashed past the $3.30 favourite Paroquet to take up the running after 220m.
Talks Up A Storm then relaxed and coasted through the opening quarter of the final mile in 31.8sec. and the second 400m in 30.4sec. before sprinting over the final 800m in 57sec. He held on to win by a half-head from the $3.60 second fancy Theo Aviator, who finished boldly from sixth at the bell.
This ended a losing sequence of 14 and improved Talk Up A Storm’s record to 47 starts for 11 wins, 13 placings and stakes of $178,878.
“I can’t answer what happened at his previous start,” said a relieved Lindau. “I have no idea. His heart rate was exactly the same as it was tonight. I put his failure down to a mental problem; he simply didn’t turn up when he had the perfect draw at barrier one.
“After that defeat I took him home. He didn’t eat up and the next day he just stood in the corner of the paddock. It was the same the following day. There was no spark.
“However, on the following Friday he worked brilliantly on the Jandakot track, and he was lively in the paddock the next day. He was a hundred miles an hour around the paddock yesterday (Thursday).
“So, I drew a line through his defeat. And leading up to tonight’s race his trackwork was outstanding, as good as he has ever worked, if not better.”