Cudgee dairy farmer and hobby trainer John Meade wins Australasia's richest trotting race with Sparkling Success

Cudgee’s John Meade labelled Sparkling Success’ victory in the $300,000 group one race at Melton on Saturday night “unbelievable”.

Meade, who celebrated the triumph with a barbecue on his south-west farm on Sunday, said Sparkling Success had been “a revelation”.

He praised driver Chris Svanosio for his gutsy efforts in the 2760-metre feature.

“I jumped around, yelled and screamed,” Meade said of his initial reaction to Sparkling Success’ win.

“We had a fair few barrackers there – my sister even came from Mount Gambier and she had her daughter there and a couple of her grandchildren. I had a fair few of my mates from the Terang club there.”

Meade said he was humbled to etch his name in racing history.

“We always live in hope and I’ve been in the game for the best part of 40 years and we’ve had some nice horses,” he said.

“A fair way from home I said to an old mate who had travelled down with us ‘gee, it’s a long way home from here’. But he travelled well.

“He doesn’t pull, he just sits there and coming around the home turn he kicked away from them and the ones who had had a pretty easy run on the inside pegs got off and came at him but he was good enough to hold them off.”