RARELY does a racehorse receive a standing ovation, but thousands of racegoers at Randwick rose as one to greet Takeover Target's victory in the Group1 TJ Smith Stakes yesterday.
Australia's most popular horse set a race record despite the dead track to bow out a winner in what was probably his Sydney farewell.
Northern Meteor was 234 lengths second in the 1200m race, with last year's winner Apache Cat another three lengths third.
The nine-year-old marvel threatened to steal all the limelight from Vision And Power, who later won the big race of the day, the $2million Doncaster Mile, to give jockey Jim Cassidy and prominent owner Nick Moraitis their third Group1s in as many weeks.
Takeover Target led the six-horse field all the way to take his record to 20 wins and 10 placings from 38 starts for prizemoney of $5.8million.
For more, pick up a copy of today's Canberra Times