TOP OF THE RANGE TOO GOOD IN BENDIGO CUP

Top Of The Range and Iowa Hawkeye kept our winning run continuing with a double at Bendigo on Wednesday highlighted by the feature Bendigo Cup.

Mike Moroney said the six-year-old son of Savabeel had finally come of age after Top Of The Range finished strongly to defeat Brimham Rocks in a driving finish with stablemate Hang Man an honourable third.

Top Of The Range (pictured) ran second to Surprise Baby in the Adelaide Cup in March and had finished a last-start second to Wolfe in the Coongy Cup at Caulfield a fortnight ago.

“He’s never been an easy horse to train but this preparation he has come back stronger, better mentally and it is the best we have had him,” Moroney.

“He’s had a couple of little issues in his career but he’s matured now and he’s good to deal with. He won really well today, he got a terrific ride from Willie Pike and he made a winning decision switching back to the inside.

“I’m not sure where we’ll go. We’ll see how he pulls up first but there’s a bonus for any horse that wins the Bendigo Cup and the Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Flemington and that fits in ideally so that’s probably the way we will go.”

Iowa Hawkeye showed plenty of determination earlier in the day to lead most of the way to win the Maiden Plate over 1400m under Dwayne Dunn.

Moroney said the son of Lope de Vega should take good improvement from the run, his first this preparation.

“He’s come back a stronger horse this time and I thought it was a good, tough win,” Moroney said.

“It was a good ride by Dwayne as we didn’t plan on leading but when he looked like being trapped out three wide he let the horse roll and it was the right decision.

“He’ll be better off over further I think and will take good benefit from the run. We’ll see how he comes out of this and then we’ll make a plan.”