Grandioso’s long trips from Warwick to the Gold Coast pay off with win at Aquis Park

It took 48 hours of driving but Les Clarke has finally celebrated a win with Grandioso at the Gold Coast.

IT took 48 hours of driving but Les Clarke has finally celebrated a win with Grandioso at the Gold Coast.

The five-year-old gelding won Saturday’s Benchmark 65 Handicap (1400m) at Aquis Park for Clarke who has been driving the horse three hours to the turf club and back from his Warwick base in search of a win.

“It was a good ride by Luke Rolls,” Clarke said.

“He had to switch back to the inside and run up through the fence.”

The horse was a $26 outsider for the race.

Grandioso, riding with the blinkers off again, settled at the back of the field and was momentarily hampered while rounding the turn when Intimissimi shifted in but managed to still get the job done.

Winner of Race 6 Grandioso riden by Luke Rolls at the Gold Coast Turf Club. (Photo/Steve Holland)

Grandioso first hit the track at Aquis Park in a trial midway through 2018, winning the race ahead of Akage who has since gone on to win a metropolitan race at Eagle Farm.

But six attempts to win at the track after that had gone begging, despite placing in three of those, until Saturday’s breakthrough.

“He seems to race well at that track, you just need to right class and distance,” Clarke said.

“You just have to work out where horses race the best. Some horses love the Gold Coast track and some don’t. If they handle it then you keep going back.

“He is only a little horse. Little horses struggle with big weights when they get to 58 or 59kg. “On Saturday he got down to 54.5kg and it makes a big difference.”

Meanwhile, Gold Coast jockey Luke Dittman celebrated his first wins since returning from a back injury that kept him out of racing for three months.

Dittman won on Gillian Heinrich’s Dixon Bay in the Class 1 Plate (1200m) and Pat Duff’s Bambalam in the QTIS Three-Years-Old Maiden Plate (1400m).