Ken Casellas | Photo: Hamilton Content Creators
Talented trainer-reinsman Dylan Egerton-Green, fresh from his five winners from five drives at Pinjarra last Monday, maintained his purple patch at Gloucester Park on Friday night when he landed a double with Glenledi Chief and Typhoon Banner.
Typhoon Banner, third favourite at $3.50 in the five-horse Broken Hill Hotel Pace, continued in grand form with his impressive victory and showed that he has realistic prospects of developing into a prominent candidate for the rich Fremantle and WA Pacing Cups next summer.
From barrier No. 4 Typhoon Banner settled down behind the pacemaker and $16 outsider Lord Rosco after the $2.70 favourite Beat City moved into the breeze 300m after the start.
Ideal Agent ($3.10) trailed Beat City in the one-out, one-back position before taking the lead 300m from home. But he was unable to hold out the fast-finishing Typhoon Banner, who surged to the front in the final 70m and went on to beat $10 chance Heez Our Perseus, who rattled home from last with a powerful four-wide burst.
Typhoon Banner, who is trained by Egerton-Green, rated 1.57.2 over the 2130m when the final 800m was covered in 57sec.
“It’s tricky in small fields,” said Egerton-Green. “You’ve just got to get the right run – and things worked out well for me tonight. Typhoon Banner keeps ticking the boxes and doing what he has to do. He has had a bit of luck in a few of his races.
“But he has a good turn of foot, and hopefully he keeps improving. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that he develops into a Cups horse next summer. He is getting better with every campaign. His major strength is that he is pretty fast.”
Typhoon Banner was purchased in New Zealand as an unraced youngster by Rob Tomlinson and Damian Keating, and he gave his owners a quick early return by winning at his second (and final) start in New Zealand when he scored by seven lengths in a 2000m event for three-year-old at Manawatu in November 2019. The Bettors Delight gelding now has earned $137,413 from 13 wins and ten placings from 37 starts.
He is out of the unraced McArdle mare When You’re Hot, and he is a full-brother to Cyclone Banner, who has had 61 starts for 19 wins, 16 placings and $181,495 in stakes. A winner of two races in New Zealand, Cyclone Banner had 36 starts in Western Australia for 13 wins and nine placings before being sold to America where he has won another four times.