Australia's leading trainer Luke McCarthy quinellaed the $25,000 Canberra Cup with Roman Stride clearing away from stablemate Garnet River in the home straight to win by five metres yesterday.
Driver Mat Rue made a telling mid-race move on Roman Stride ($2.70 favourite) taking the six-year-old gelding on a three-wide run down the back straight with a lap and a half still to run to claim the lead from Garnet River ($3.70).
From there Roman Stride was never headed cruising home in a moderate two minute, 2.3 second mile rate, more than two seconds slower the Ironrealm's track record for the 2540m journey.
Garnet River burst off the front of the starting mobile from the widest barrier (six) to take up the early running and, after being passed by Roman Stride, Brad Hewitt was content to sit behind the leader and battled on well for second, edging out the fast finishing Rohan Home by a neck for second place.
''It was a pretty strong run, he did a bit of work in the middle stages [of the race] and was still strong enough to hold them off on the line,'' Rue said.
''It was a bit of a dog fight towards the end. He was getting very tired towards the line but so were the others.''
Rue had not planned to make a move mid-race but when Garnet River slowed after going fast early he took advantage and whipped around the field.
''I was quite happy sitting back but when they backed off a bit I chose to move around,'' Rue said.
''He felt strong when he moved around them so I asked him for a bit of an effort and he ran to the lead.''
The win comes on the back of an impressive run in the Goulburn Cup in which he just failed to run down another stablemate Mach Wiper, who ran 10th in the group1 Hunter Cup on Saturday night.
The win takes Roman Stride's tally to 18 wins from 40 starts and gives trainer McCarthy his 128th win for the season, the most in Australia.
The Jarrod Alchin-trained Juryman led all the way to claim the $10,000 Ackie Hawke Final for C3-C5 pacers and Goulburn trainer Neil Day picked up two winners, including Treuative which finished in a dead heat with the Canberra-trained Meknowdad.
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