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Team Sears Ride Wave Of Emotion To Ipswich Cup Win
Date: 24-Jun-2024
An electrical fire in the T.L. Cooney Grandstand the night before Ipswich Cup Day didn’t prevent the 2024 edition of the iconic event from being a resounding success.
A massive crowd reveled off the track while numerous special racing moments were created on track by our talented participants.
Sean Tou and his track team once again provided an excellent racing surface that drew wide praise.
Team Sears Ride Wave Of Emotion To Ipswich Cup Win
Toowoomba galloper Red Wave hadn’t won since the 18th of March 2023 when he took his place in Saturday’s Listed TAB Ipswich Cup.
The market didn’t fancy the Tony and Maddysen Sears-trained gelding’s chances, rating him a $17 prospect.
However, that didn’t dent the confidence of the father and daughter duo who were quietly confident that they had the right horse to win the $250k feature race.
“He put in one real bad run at Brisbane the other day on a wet track which he doesn’t really like,” Sears said.
“So, we were pretty confident without saying too much leading into today (Saturday) because he had no weight on a dry track.
“A very good friend of ours told me that he thought our horse could win the Cup and he’s a very good judge so when he said that I was quite confident.
He jumped out on Tuesday and went terrific.”
The proud father fought back tears as he paid tribute to his daughter who is also a part-owner of Red Wave.
I’m just so happy for Maddysen as she does all the work with this horse,” Sears said.
“She means everything to me, and I mean everything.
“Everything I do as far as training is concerned, I do it for her and hopefully she can take it on a bit further.
She’s a very good girl, I’m very proud of her and love her to bits.”
Last season’s leading Ipswich apprentice, Angela Jones, provided the son of Red Dazzler a peach of a ride.
Jones made full use of the inside barrier to settle third the fence in the 2150m test of stamina.
While her rivals fanned wide turning for home, the talented young hoop hugged the fence before getting off the leader Zoumon’s back in the straight.
The pair settled in for a fight to the line with the Kelly Schweida-trained London Banker before prevailing in the final strides to win by a neck.
Jones was ecstatic to win her fourth black-type race.
“What a thrill!” a jubilant Jones said.
“Just a big credit to Tony and Maddysen Sears.
“You can never count out one of their horses.
“He’s come off two average runs, but they knew he was back to his best today (Saturday) and they couldn’t have filled me with more confidence.
“I knew that barrier one was going to count for a lot, and we got the sweetest run.
“Credit to the horse, he just travels where you want him to and doesn’t spend a penny.
“It looked like it was going to be a dog fight between me and Kelly Schweida’s horse, but I knew we had the upper hand with the weight pull.
“It’s just a super effort and such a tough job from the horse.
“Tony and Maddysen are such great supporters of mine and they’re happy to put me on in these bigger races so it’s so good to get the job done for them.”
When Tony Sears said his daughter does all the work with Red Wave, he wasn’t lying with Maddysen even taking care of strapping duties on Saturday.
The 26-year-old horsewoman missed having her mum on course to celebrate the win with but was taken aback as the TAB Ipswich Cup winner’s rug went on her horse.
“He’s very, very special,” Sears said.
“I’ve had this race marked out for him all Carnival so for him to pull it off is very exciting.
“I’m very emotional with mum away at the moment so I was standing by myself and cheering on my own and thinking ‘where’s Dad?’, I just wanted to celebrate!”
By Craig Sheppard
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