As stable favourite Iona Fast One landed an overdue city success on Saturday, emerging young trainer Brad Herne has an eye on the future, having secured his strongest contingent of yearlings in 2015.
Herne has a new outlook on life, with he and wife Lauren welcoming their first child, Harry, 10 weeks ago.
“Having a baby makes the horses seem easy,” he said.
“Getting up at 3am seems easy now too compared to full time parenthood.”
Herne bought eight yearlings at various sales this year.
“I am really looking forward to next year,” Herne said.
“We bought at Melbourne Premier, Sydney Classic and Magic Millions and have a nice cross-section to work with.”
The addition of blinkers did the trick for Iona Fast One on Saturday, with Herne revealing he “worked sensationally” in the shades last Tuesday after a disappointing effort at his previous start.
“He’s always been a bit special to us,” Herne said.
“Lauren used to ride his mum (In My Sights) in work and took a real shine to her.
“We were only newly married and when she came up for sale, she pushed me into buying her.”
Iona Fast One is her first foal and Herne said she had had little luck since then, with the next foal dying and then slipping two years in a row.
“Fortunately she now has a Red Element weanling colt and is in foal to Denman,” he said.
Iona Fast One won a Sunshine Coast Class 1 by seven lengths in quick time in November 2013 and was expected to go straight through his grades, but it’s been a frustrating waiting period for him to live up to that.
“Chris Munce gave him a really good rap early on, but he has been slow maturing and the other thing is that he doesn’t like Doomben,” Herne said.
“He seems to love the Caloundra 1000m where there’s only one turn to get around.
“We thought this would be his prep when he won first-up and then ran well second-up, but there was no other way to describe his next run but disappointing.
“Fortunately the blinkers made a difference.”
Published in The Courier Mail
By Nathan Exelby
