Wentwood was the first horse Maddie Raymond put a saddle on when branching out on her own almost two years ago and he has rewarded her patience with victory in the Bendigo Cup.
The imported son of Poi Moi collected his fourth Cup victory for Raymond in taking out the Group 3 race that carried $400,000 in prize money over 2400m on Wednesday.
Raymond said Wentwood’s attitude and racing manners had held him back and while they are gradually improving, they as still not where they should be.
Ridden by Harry Coffey, Wentwood held off Smokin’ Romans to score by a short-head with Taramansour a half-neck away third.
“He’s come so far in 12 months,” Raymond said.
“It was nearly twelve months ago that he won the St Arnaud Cup and that was a sigh of relief.
“To get here today and win this race and see how well he is relaxing is a huge achievement from the whole team at home.
“The key to him is getting him to switch off which he did do today.
“There were a few moments there where they steadied, and I thought we might be in a bit of trouble, and I thought Harry will have worked for that one today.
“His attitude and racing manners is probably what have held him back and we’ve finally ironed that out a little bit, but I still think that he’s got plenty of improvement.”
Raymond said the logical target was the Listed Ballarat Cup (2000m) on November 20, although there was the option of entering for the Group 1 Mackinnon Stakes (2000m) at Flemington on November 6.
“We’ll get him home and assess,” Raymond said.
“We have the option to throw a nomination in for the Mackinnon but that is ten days away and it might come around a bit soon.
“He does like his runs spaced a little bit, but he does bounce through his runs well at the moment.”
The Melbourne Cup dream looks over for the connections of Amade who needed to run in the top three to work his way into the final field of 24.
But Amade blew the start before finishing fifth, beaten 3-½ lengths.