The Tony and Maddysen Sears stable will be the defending champions going into the King Of The Mountain contest on New Year’s Day at Toowoomba, having won the inaugural running of the race with Yellow Brick last year.
The stable effectively has two slots in the race with stable client Jayven See and Sears Racing themselves both owning slots which have now been filled with the Sears stable runners Steady Ready and Avone.
Steady Ready, who was a relatively early call, will be having a second bite at the cherry having finished third in the race last year.
“Everybody seems to have forgotten about Steady Ready,” said co-trainer Maddy Sears. “At one point he was the boom two-year-old and then suddenly they were saying, ‘whose Steady Ready? I don’t mind that at all. We are happy to have him as one of our runners.”
The Sears slot has taken longer to sort out, but that decision came through yesterday.
“Yes, we’ve got our slot sorted,” confirmed Maddy Sears. “We’ve got Avone … and dad and I have been pretty keen on having her in it for a bit now.
‘I think her very brave run on Saturday (when she was a breath away from the win in the Listed Gold edition) earned her the slot in the race.
‘You know, it (The King Of The Mountain) is a $750 000 race and she’ll carry 52kg, so it is a big carrot to dangle in front of us.
“We know the type of his you have got to have to win that kind of race and we believe that Avone and Steady Ready very much deserve their places in the field.
“We definitely believe that Avone is going to take improvement out of the Gold Edition run. She’s had a lovely three days out in a big grassy paddock … and, already, dad and I believe she looks better than when she raced the other day.
“She just keeps making natural improvement.
‘We believe she is very talented and very much a horse on the way up. She’ll run in the King Of The Mountain and then we will put her away for The Jewel and the Winter Carnival.”
Asked about Yellow Brick, last year’s King Of The Mountain winner who is currently spelling, Sears replied, “He’s doing awesome. He’ll come back in after Magic Millions.
“I got sent a video of him the other day … flat out sleeping in a grassy paddock at Universal.
“He was dreaming … like doing little trots on the ground in his sleep.
“He’s living his best life, that’s for sure and is enjoying his well-deserved break.”
