By Isaac Murphy
Farmor Beach was on the fast track to stardom for Wayne Scott after winning the Group 3 Vince Curry at nineteen months.
He was then aimed at the Launching Pad in Victoria as his next target, but when COVID-19 hit, the race was no more.
The virus then the dog himself, but now four months later he’s back in the winner’s circle at Albion Park and will aim up against Queensland’s best young dogs in Thursday’s Emerging Origin Stars Sprint.
Scott said he always knew there were going to be growing pains bringing Farmor Beach back from a forty-three-day layoff from his last race in Victoria but the signs were there in start one at Albion Park that he was on the right track.
“Last Thursday night from the jump he just never had a chance, he got swamped early and still managed to work his way into fourth before bumping into the rail around the six hundred boxes - despite all of that he still showed us enough he’d be better next time out,” Scott said
“We were really pleased with his last section, 12.75 home for a dog that’s still a little bit underdone and coming off a nasty virus, it was a promising result.”
Scott said it was essential to get the dog accustomed to Albion Park and at the second time of asking he delivered his first win at the track on Monday and still has plenty of scope.
“He missed the kick terribly, he’s not lightning away but should be a bit better than that early, but the big takeaway was he found a way to win and we want to get him back in that mindset,” Scott said.
“He hadn’t seen Albion under race conditions until last Thursday and even before then we’ve done hardly any education with him around the track so he’s travelling pretty well.
“Hopefully with a few more runs he’ll start pinging the lids again and staying away from the rail at the six hundred boxes where he’s bumped both times he’s gone around.”
Farmor Beach has just eight starts to his name and with the stop-start nature to his career, Scott is determined to get some routine into the dog who’s handling his workload well ahead of Thursday night’s Emerging Origin Stars test.
“He needs to get those runs under his belt to regain that hard race fitness,” Scott said.
“He backed up really well from Thursday to Monday last week and we’re going to go Monday to Thursday this week when he’ll go around in the Emerging Origin Stars race.
“We’re throwing him in the deep end a bit, people get excited about what he did in the Vince Curry Series and he was brilliant but in the end he only beat other maidens and he needs to be toughened up a bit against some of these other good young dogs.
“He’ll need to draw low seeing he’s not the quickest away at the moment and we just want to see that little bit of improvement each time in.
“He’s fearless the way he goes into that first turn you just hope to see him come out of it in the first few.”