HOT favourite Day On The Drink gave his backers no concern for worry in scoring an impressive maiden victory at Warrnambool on Thursday.
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Trained by Daniel Bowman, Day On The Drink defeated Samatar by three lengths with Testatin back in third place in the 1100-metre race.
Bowman said he was confident the son of Host could break his maiden status after two good runs from a spell.
“I thought he had to win on his last start effort,” the Warrnambool-based trainer said. “He needed the run last time to improve his fitness and I couldn’t improve his fitness anymore for this race.
"He came here in great order. We’ll just take Day On The Drink quietly through his grades. It was a perfect ride by Declan Bates from barrier one. He’s a very underrated jockey.”
From his seven starts Day On The Drink has earnt more than $25,000 in stakemoney.
Meanwhile, Racing Victoria has introduced some safety enhancements for this jumping season including that a track rating no better than a soft 5 (replacing a good 4) for jumps races and trials.
Local rules will be amended to require horses to trial over 2800m (replacing 2400m) if they qualified in the prior season but did not have a race start.
Field sizes for all jumps races, other than races worth $50,000 or more, will be reduced from 12 to 10 runners per race.
This restriction will apply to 39 races across the season. Warrnambool Racing Club host the first jumps races for the season on March 14.
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