Impending win in Stradbroke the perfect tonic for Beadman

Report: Australia, Saturday

Doomben (Brisbane): Stradbroke Hcap (Group 1) 7f | turf | 2yo+

Trainer Darren Beadman missed the biggest moment of his fledgling training career when Impending (Corey Brown) finished strongly down the centre of the track to take the Group 1 Stradbroke Handicap at Doomben.

The 19-1 chance beat In Her Time by a neck, with the favourite Clearly Innocent a length back in third.

Godolphin boss Henry Plumptre revealed Beadman was too sick to be at Doomben after being struck down by a serious virus during the week.

"Darren has had a pretty ordinary week. He got a virus and like all horse trainers thought it was a cold," Plumptre said. "It got worse and we sent him to hospital. He got out Thursday and he is fine but I told him if he came up here I would fire him."

Beadman, who won 86 Group 1s as a jockey, has been working as the Australia Godolphin trainer for six weeks after John O'Shea resigned in May. James Cummings takes over next month.

Plumptre said Godolphin had been fortunate to have someone as experienced as Beadman as a fill-in trainer. "He's done a great job in the past six weeks," he said.

Impending continued the great run of three-year-olds in the Stradbroke, being the seventh of that age group to win in the past 25 years, with the latest Sincero in 2011.

It was Godolphin's fifth Group 1 winner in Australia of the season and Plumptre believes Impending can boost the numbers in 2017-18.

"He will head home now and we can have a talk about the spring," he said.

Winning jockey Corey Brown brought up his fourth Group 1 win since returning from Singapore this year.

"He races best outside horses and although I was deep I was able to get cover and he finished very well," he said.

Race result