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By Ray Hickson

A six-year-old gelding with just four starts and a debut less than six months ago must have a story and Great Idea, who has his first TAB Highway start at Rosehill on Saturday, certainly does.

Trainer Ben Blay

He’s a horse that’s lucky to be a live let alone winning races but his trainer Ben Blay says it’s a testament to the care and patience put in by Domeland after some major problems arose as a younger horse.

Blay is particularly passionate about horse welfare and said it’s a privilege to be asked by Domeland to take on a number of horses to train, and Great Idea is a particularly special one.

“I was told he’d had stomach issues early on in his career, he spent a lot of time at the vets in Sydney,’’ Blay said.

“They were told to put him down at one point but they persevered and lucky they did because he’s a nice horse.

“I started working with Domeland while Sara Ryan was head trainer.

“They were looking for a country based trainer, we helped them rehome some mares and they sent us a few horses and it’s gone from there.”

The 34-year-old Muswellbrook trainer currently has four horses for Domeland and one of the aims was to develop horses into TAB Highway prospects and Great Idea is the first of them to make it to that level.

Blay, whose father is a hobby trainer, has had an interesting path to training racehorses from riding some trackwork as a teenager, dropping out of pharmacy school at Newcastle University, working for Olympian Vicky Roycroft and having his own showjumping business.

He found his way into a stablehand job with Todd Howlett, trained a few horses on the side since 2019 and has been out on his own for a year or so.

“I had a lot of help from Aleacia Bennett and Phil Moore in town to get a few more numbers and make it viable so with them and Domeland and a few syndicated horses I’ve been able to keep a small team,’’ he said.

“Domeland have been really helpful to me, I would have had no winners a couple of seasons ago if it wasn’t for their horses.”

Great Idea showed a bit of promise in his debut when he ran fourth as a $61 chance at Tamworth in March but he’s hit his straps in the past two months with back-to-back wins at the same track.

After he scored over 1400m at Tamworth on August 7 the TAB Highway (1400m) at Rosehill was firmly on the radar as Blay was so keen to give the gelding his chance he scratched from a Class 2 at Tamworth on Friday where he had barrier one.

“It’s really hard to come out of maiden grade and for him to do it in the fashion he did is quite pleasing,’’ he said.

“It’s a Class 2 Highway and he’s won two races, I think he’s pretty progressive so I didn’t have any worries in hitting some better horses.”

Blay has only had a handful of city runners and he ran second in a Highway in 2020 with Alot To Hoffa and he said Great Idea is the best horse he’s trained since.

He says he learned a lesson about the horse when he resumed in this preparation and the booking of Zac Lloyd is no coincidence as Blay feels he will suit his horse’s style of racing.

“Even before he won his first race I was pretty excited about him,’’ he said.

Great Idea wins at Tamworth on August 7

“It’s a strong enough Highway but my horse runs on pretty well and I’m happy to have Zac Lloyd on.

“We were cooked first-up by punching him up. If you let him wind up and have the best furlong as his last that’s the way to ride him.

“I saw us midfield with cover from the gate and Zac Lloyd is very relaxed and loves to find a gap so I thought he was the ideal jockey for him.”

All the fields, form and replays for Saturday’s Rosehill meeting