Our Ivanhowe has finally broken through for a maiden win at the highest level of Australian racing; returning from a freshen-up to take out the Group 1 Doomben Cup (2000m) in Brisbane this afternoon.

Our Ivanhowe was arguably the forgotten runner in the Doomben Cup field, but jumped well and was settled off the pace of early race leaders Messene, Noble Protector and Volkstok’n’Barrell by jockey Kerrin McEvoy.

Experiencing a relatively carefree run in transit, the Soldier Hollow entire was caught towards the read of the field rounding onto the final straight, but found a great racing line on the outside of the classy field of ten and produced a big turn of foot to win by half a length.

McEvoy delivered a typically calm performance aboard Our Ivanhowe to win the Doomben Cup, and revealed he was not particularly confident the horse would handle the going at Doomben this afternoon.

“You had to take him on trust – his spring form was pretty impeccable without winning,”

“I got back further in the field than I wanted, but I got on the back of Hauraki and they went a nice clip.

“I just sort of got held up and had to manoeuvre to the outside in the straight but to the horse’s credit, he showed a big turn of foot.

“He picked up strong and as soon as I gave him a few backhanders, he was away and I knew I was the winner.

“Full credit to the Freedman team, I must say I queried running on this ground here today and they proved me wrong.”

Anthony Freedman was on hand for Our Ivanhowe’s impressive win in the Doomben Cup; Team Freedman’s second Brisbane feature win in as many weeks, having saddled Malaguerra to success in the Group 1 BTC Cup seven days earlier.

“It hasn’t been easy to get him here, he’s got issues but obviously has a lot of ability,”

“He hasn’t had a lot of luck in his races, so nothing has really gone right and it didn’t look like things were going to go right today, but fortunately he got to the outside with momentum and was able to finish it off.

“I took him down to my place at the Peninsula and just played with him the last six weeks, changed everything and a big thanks to our two farriers who have just done an amazing job.

“He’s hard work, but hopefully we’ve got him going now.”

Our Ivanhowe won two Group 1 feature races in his native Germany prior to be transferred to the care of the Freedmans in early 2015.

Punters who backed Our Ivanhowe in the lucrative ‘Enhanced Odds’ market at Ladbrokes.com.au have been paid out on $21 odds!

2016 Doomben Cup Results

Finish	No.	Horse	Trainer	Jockey	Margin	Bar.	Weight	Starting Price
1	3	OUR IVANHOWE (GER)	Lee & Anthony Freedman	Kerrin McEvoy	–	6	59kg	$16
2	2	HAURAKI	John O’Shea	James McDonald	0.4L	1	59kg	$3.20F
3	5	IT’S SOMEWHAT (USA)	John O’Shea	Damian Browne	1.2L	9	59kg	$5.50
4	1	VOLKSTOK’N’BARRELL (NZ)	Donna Logan & Chris Gibbs	Blake Shinn	1.6L	5	59kg	$5.50
5	7	MAURUS (GB)	David Vandyke	Blake Spriggs	1.8L	10	59kg	$26
6	10	LADY LE FAY (NZ)	Chris Waller	Jason Collett	2.6L	7	57kg	$17
7	8	SPIRITJIM (FR)	Chris Waller	Hugh Bowman	5.1L	3	59kg	$9
8	6	MESSENE	Michael, Wayne & John Hawkes	James Orman (a)	8.6L	4	59kg	$21
9	4	LEEBAZ (NZ)	Michael, Wayne & John Hawkes	Michael Cahill	12.1L	2	59kg	$10
10	9	NOBLE PROTECTOR (GB)	Robert Smerdon	Tim Clark	14.4L	8	57kg	$9.50