By John Dunne
Multiple group 1-winning mare Susan Is Her Name returned to the racetrack with a resounding victory in the Mimosa Homes Trot at Melton on Saturday night.
Having her first outing since September, Susan Is Her Name settled midfield in the running line before Kerry Manning latched onto the three-wide trail behind Dichotomy with 600 metres to travel.
Once balanced in the home straight, Susan Is Her Name let down with giant strides and scored running away by 13 metres from Dichotomy and Bitta Irish Luck in a mile rate of 1:57.9.
Manning, who was having her first drive behind the four-year-old, was suitably impressed with the win.
“She felt awesome, a lovely horse to drive,” Manning said.
“She settled well, everything went perfectly really and she just ran away at the end and did it very comfortably. You usually don’t win races that easily.”
Manning said the winner possesses natural high speed.
“She’s a tall horse but fairly solid and goes really straight behind and she certainly gets over the ground fairly easily,” she said.
“Clayton (Tonkin) described her as having ‘pacing like’ speed and she pulled off the back of Greg (Sugars) like she had just joined in.”
Manning believes the Emma Stewart-trained Susan Is Her Name has the capacity to compete at a high level.
“She’s certainly got all the attributes; the speed and she’s shown she can stay as well,” she said.
“Obviously the soundness is going to be the worry going forward, but she felt perfect tonight and hopefully that remains the case and there should be better things to come for her.”
Manning and Stewart combined for a trotting double later in the night when Harold Smith overcame a 20-metre handicap in taking out the Aldebaran Park Trotters Handicap.
Harold Smith settled a long way off the leaders before Manning pulled out three wide to sit parked outside the leader Im Bobby with a lap to travel.
Harold Smith forged to the lead around the home turn, and although inclined to switch off in the straight, had sufficient in reserve to hold a three-metre margin on the line over Illawong Larajay.
Manning admitted the son of Andover Hall gave her a slight concern in the run to the line.
“He had a good look around and sort of switched off, and I did get the warning that he would do that, but I was ready. It was a bit of a heart-stopper there for a second,” she said.
The win completed a driving treble for Manning, who partnered Edward Grange to victory in the opening event on the eight-race program.
