Ken Casellas | Photo: Hamilton Content Creators
Star reinsman Ryan Warwick was fulsome in his praise of Ideal Agent and predicted the New Zealand-bred five-year-old would be a worthy candidate for the $300,000 Fremantle Cup and the $450,000 WA Pacing Cup in January after he had driven him to a narrow victory in the 2536m Barbagallo Land Rover Pace at Gloucester Park on Friday night.
“I think he’s a Cups horse, though I would rather not see him in high-class fields like he was in the breeze in tonight’s race,” said Warwick.
“There seems to be no tempo in the class of races he has been contesting. He is only a little stallion who can sit and sprint. But we just don’t get to see it, the way the pattern of racing has been in recent starts. Regarding the Cups, we will find out where he sits, and take it from there.”
Ideal Agent, who revealed his staying ability when he began from 20m and won the 2902m Easter Cup last April, has performed superbly for leading trainers Greg and Skye Bond in WA, with his 21 starts in the State producing ten wins and eight placings after racing 31 times in New Zealand for four wins, nine seconds and three thirds. He has earned $207,696 from 14 wins and 20 placings from 52 starts.
He was a $3.80 chance from barrier five on Friday night, and after racing three wide early, he moved to the breeze, with Doc Holliday ($3.20) setting the pace and the $3.50 equal favourite Fanci A Dance enjoying an ideal passage in the one-out, one-back position.
Warwick sent Ideal Agent to the front 270m from home, and he held on grimly to beat Fanci A Dance by a nose, with Beat City ($3.50) a close-up, fast-finishing third.
“I didn’t think that I would get to the breeze that easily,” said Warwick. “It looked like Fanci A Dance was happy to hand over, and we got there pretty cheaply. The lead time was quite slow, so I had to back Ideal Agent to run a mile. The two to beat (Fanci A Dance and Beat City) were one-out and one back and one out and two back, so I couldn’t go too hard.
“Ideal Agent was pretty brave up the straight. I was hoping he would beat the others; it was more trust in the last 100m than anything.”