Prepared by John Moore and ridden by Hugh Bowman, Werther was an even-money
favourite and overcame a chequered season and significant trouble on the home
turn to wear down Tony Cruz's evergreen galloper Blazing Speed by a short head."It's a special win for the stable and for the staff," said Moore, who trained four winners on the 10-race card, including both G1s, with the handler also preparing the first three across the line in the Queen's Silver Jubilee Cup (1400m) with Helene Paragon, Able Friend and Joyful Trinity.
"These big days are what we target, and so to have a result like this is a thrill."
It was Werther's third win from three attempts at the course and distance, having won the BMW Hong Kong Derby in March before an imperious effort to take the Group I Audemars Piguet QEII Cup in April.
The five year-old Tavistock gelding had missed the early part of this season with a right hind suspensory injury, only returning to the races for January's Group I Stewards' Cup (1600m), but according to Moore, this tenacious win that he is right back on track now.
"I always thought he'd come back to his best, I was more worried about his quirkiness than his injury," he said. "Winning the QEII like he did, it put him top five in the planet on turf, so we know that we've got a very special horse, but it took something else for him to win today. At about the 500m, the horses have improved on his outside very quickly, and he got put back on the heels of Blazing Speed, it nearly cost him the race. But he does stay 2000m strongly, as we know, he picked himself up and still hit the line strongly. So it was a gutsy effort!
"I'm ecstatic that we got away with it today, and had he not been interfered with, he probably would have won by a length or so, but that's racing and I'm now looking forward to Dubai (Dubai Turf) with him. Hopefully he doesn't do anything silly beforehand, though, because he is a bit quirky."
Trelawney Stud as agent will offer the full sister to Werther at Inglis Easter as Lot 48. The bay filly is by outstanding sire Tavistock from the Zabeel mare Bagalollies , the 2015/2016 NZ Broodmare of the Year.
