Eddie Tappe has trained and driven horses in every season but one since 1979-80, and in Im Monica the 62-year-old says he may have his best horse yet.
She may still be a maiden after only five starts, but Im Monica’s eye-catching second in her Australian Pacing Gold two-year-old fillies heat has her trainer-driver-owner buoyed about what may lay ahead.
“This is the best result,” Tappe said. “For her to get that far, she’s probably the best I’ve had. Fingers crossed she just keeps delivering.”
Not only did Im Monica qualify handsomely for Friday night’s APG semi-finals, but she has drawn the pole mark and appears well positioned to make a bid for the $322,000 May 6 Group 1 final.
For Tappe, qualification itself is an irresistible proposition.
Based at Congupna, north of Shepparton, Tappe has readied his horses for 580 race starts across his 37 years training, yielding 29 wins. Much of those were produced by Ben Suru (a winner between 1983-86), Speedrow (1986-1989), Polatair (1997-2001), Allinjarra (1999-2001), Joshinjarra (2003-2005) and more recently Jovial Jurno Lombo (2016-2017). And of those only the latter’s won a stakes race worth more than $7000.
In all of those Tappe has taken the reins and he will do so again on Friday night, when Im Monica will emerge from gate one at 8.40pm in the second of the $30,000 filly’s heats. It’s an alluring proposition a little over 12 months on from when Tappe snapped her up for $15,000 at the APG Melbourne sale.
“I liked the look of her and Sportswriter has done a pretty fair job, and her third dam (Foys Folly) on her mother’s side produced some good New Zealand horses,” Tabbe said. “We had about a dozen who we wanted to have a look at (at the sales) and she was the first one to fall into our price range so we brought her home.”
She debuted at Bendigo on January 17 and ran fourth amid a field of six, some 61.6m in arrears of Peter Manning’s filly Amelias Courage.
“In her first run Amelias Courage went (a 1:55 mile rate) and she wasn’t ready to run that. The first three got away and she was a bit average,” he said.
“In her second run (a 10th at Kilmore) she got a little lost in traffic when a couple of horses galloped rough and she didn’t run it out as I might have liked.
“She was showing more at home and still only learning, so while I was a little concerned I was still hopeful that she would keep progressing.
“After that I took the block blinkers off and put a fly veil and Dolly Varden winkers on and that seemed to have done the trick, because she was looking around a bit too much before that.”
Next stop was the Maryborough Golf & Bowls Clubs 2YO Pace when, at $145 on the tote, she ran a game third, finishing off strongly from three back on the pegs to finish within 7m of Emma Stewart’s Typhoon Tilly, who will also contest Friday’s semi-final.
She also finished well when fourth in her next start at Ballarat, beaten only 5.8m when the slower tempo wasn’t to her suiting, and Tappe said he “was quite pleased with” those runs.
Next stop was the APG heat, when she benefited from the gate one draw.
“You’ve got to go there hoping she can compete against horses who have already performed. You hope they can take than next step and be competitive.”
She settled into three back the pegs, able to steady while well fancied Passions Delight and Amelias Courage blazed up front. Concern rose when Im Monica started to pull heading into the final turn, but Tappe managed to steer her through a gap between Yourockanna and Amelias Courage to be the best thing hitting the line behind impressive winner Passions Delight.
“She got a bit keen around the home turn and still worked to the line well,” he said. “For her to do that, to get keen, and still finish so well was probably above expectations.”
And so it’s on to the semi-final, where lady luck has again been in Tappe’s favour at the random barrier draw, delivering a second successive gate one.
“I’d like to be able to lead, because it would suit her, but at the moment I don’t know if she has the gate speed to hold off the quicker ones,” he said. “We will be as prominent as we can be and hope for the best. It will be hard to make the final, but at least she’s in it.”
