Steady Ready’s scintillating, track record smashing win at Eagle Farm on Saturday was achieved by a happy horse racing to his true potential.
That is not a simple a combination to bring into play and the Tony and Maddysen Sears training partnership deserve every credit for that great outcome in which Steady Ready became the first horse to break the 56 second mark on the ‘new’ Eagle Farm track, setting a new track record at 55.89 seconds.
The Tony and Maddy Sears team are both very much hands-on in their profession and that close understanding of each of the horses in their stable proved to be a vital key in unlocking the door to Steady Ready’s latest success.
You will often hear trainers say they will let the horse tell them what it wants to do, well Maddy Sears was wide awake and listening when Steady Ready made it quite clear that he was not happy with being moved from the Sears Toowoomba yard to their new Gold Coast stables in the lead-up to his latest assignment.
“He was only there for less than twenty-four hours,” said Maddy Sears.
“He is a funny horse. In Toowoomba, we’ve always got music playing. He loves music essentially … anything with a strong beat … and where we are in our stable at the coast, it is probably the busiest part and he wasn’t very happy.
“I haven’t got the radio on in our barn because we’ve got the fans on, so you wouldn’t hear it.
“He was just really, really unsettled in out Gold Coast stable and I said to dad (Tony) I don’t think he is ever going to settle in here.
“He is a real creature of habit. His whole life he always lived in the same box in Toowoomba where it is pretty quiet, he does work the same time every day and, typically, for a very long time he had the same riders … so the move was a little to much for his status quo brain.
“He was so unsettled I said to dad you don’t have to worry about me stealing him. He’s a Toowoomba boy.
His brain was saying … aah, I just want to go home … so dad came and fetched him.
“That’s the blessing of being able to have two stables I guess … that we can swop and change things around a bit where it works out. It’s very beneficial.”
Tony Sears, not one for showing any great emotion, simply radiated satisfaction immediately after Steady Ready’s win at Eagle Farm. Shaking his head at the run Steady Ready had just produced, Sears quietly expressed his love for his favourite horse … and Maddy Sears was equally full of praise for the five-year-old son of Better Than Ready.
“Steady Ready is very special for sure,” said Maddy Sears. “He is a gun. He is very talented, and I think he often gets forgotten about.”
So, where to next for Steady Ready.?
“He’ll be going to the Snippets on Magic Millions Day and Jason Collett will be riding him”
Steady Ready will go to the Magic Millions Snippets as a five-time winner from seventeen starts with $657 325 banked in prize-money.
