“I was thinking what everyone else was thinking – ‘where the hell is he going to go?!'” laughed Dean Yendall after promising mare Pelonomena raced away to an easy victory at Echuca last Sunday.
From barrier one the daughter of Melbourne Cup hero Americain enjoyed a good run along the rails but with the field bunching up she was going to need plenty of luck approaching the straight.
400m remaining and still Pelonomena had nowhere to go but so well was she travelling that Yendall was able to take a brief hold on her, switching her off heels and in one smooth run getting her away from the rails to right out wide.
And once balanced she really charged, quickly gathering in her rivals with her winning margin a soft and impressive 1 1/2 lengths.
“We were all dressed up and ready to go,” Yendall reported. “I had plenty of horse underneath me and I looked at what was around me remembering that it was not an overly strong race.:
“She just had to show that bit of turn off foot that she has and she would put them away.”
And that she did, Yendall adding that “it was a really good win – and it was nice to make a good start with Mitch and get another winner for John Richards.”
A newcomer to the stable, Pelonomena has won three of her 12 starts and looks likely to get all the better as she steps up further in distance.
A home-bred for Richards, Pelonomena has stamina on both sides of her pedigree with her dam, the two times winner Gals, being a daughter of the great Galileo.
Also dam of the metropolitan winner Penryn Pearl, Gals was served last spring by Artie Schiller. A descendant of the famed matriarch Selene, she hails from the same branch of this prolific family as the champion Might And Power.
