Kerrin McEvoy gave a staying lesson of how to maintain momentum and not panic to steer Miss Dubois to victory in theCountry Classic at Rosehill on Saturday.
From an outside gate over the 2000 metres, McEvoy got Miss Dubois one off the fence at the mile mark, albeit a dozen lengths from the front.
From there he just kept making ground, at the 800m he moved three wide then four wide and by the turn for home Miss Dubois was full of running in the middle of the track but still with six lengths to make up. She wore down a game Wildflower to score by a three-quarters of a length, with D'Beak third. "In those races you have to stay out of trouble," McEvoy said. "She was better than them."
While Miss Dubois had her momentum up, Wildflower was just held up for a run at the top of the straight before bursting to the front, only to be run down by the better stayer.
It was McEvoy's first winner for the Matt Dunn stable and he admitted it was a case of just keeping going forward.
"It was good early but I was a little bit worried when Glyn [Schofield] got going underneath me," he said. "I just had to bide my time. I knew Matty's mare would run the trip out a bit better than them."
Dunn's travelling foreman and wife Keira was worried as well, as McEvoy kept getting wider and wider but in the end it was the fact Miss Dubois never got stopped as she worked into the race that proved the winning move. "That was unbelievable," Dunn said of the McEvoy ride. "What better rider can you have in a staying race. She will stay all day and got a very good ride from Kerrin."
McEvoy believes Miss Dubois may stretch out to 2400m and with a number of summer staying races coming up she could be well placed but she could be put away for carnival time.
"She has been up for a while now and whether we give her a break and bring her back for something in the carnival is what we need to decide, because we think she is up to that grade," Dunn said.
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