By Mick Floyd
John Boreland picked up his first Sandown Park winner on Sunday afternoon when the well-supported Even Keats registered an emphatic 6.75-length victory.
A $1.90 chance from Box 1, Even Keats began fairly before punching through the first turn and assuming the lead entering the back straight. From there he wasn’t challenged, racing to victory in 29.58 seconds.
It was Even Keats’s third run under the care of Boreland, having arrived in his Giffard West kennel in November last year. A son of 2017 TAB Melbourne Cup winner Aston Dee Bee, even Keats turned in an impressive first up performance when an eye catching second over 400 metres at Warragul in January before franking that form with a similar effort a week later. Stepping up to 515 metres this afternoon proved ideal, and based on his eye catching 10.40 run home time, a step up to 595 metres looks inevitable.
“He’s been going well since I got him,” said Boreland.
“We’ve been down the last few weeks to trial. He trialled post-to-post here the other day and ran home in 10.20 or so, which they tell me is real quick.
“I nominated him for last Thursday but he couldn’t get a run. We’ll see how he pulls up but we’ll aim to try again this week and obviously try and get him over a bit more ground.”
Boreland, 29, was born into the sport with his grandfather and both of his parents involved in running a trail track and educational facility in his native New South Wales. He took out his own trainers license after moving to Victoria almost three years ago where he now manages his own small team with fiance’ Tyllah.
“We have probably 13 in work, we do a lot of pretraining and the odd one we pick up to train,” Boreland said.
“I couldn’t do it without her. She’s at home slaving away – I’m just lucky enough to go to the races and know the dogs are done.”
