Signman Wins in 2yo Debut

All signs point to Lazarus - Signman wins in 2yo debut!!

It would be fair to say that trainer Arna Donnelly is pretty excited after Signman headed to the paddock a winner last Thursday.

The two-year-old son of Lazarus was an emphatic winner on debut at Cambridge last week for Donnelly, and despite starting the favourite his back story showed that his pure talent was able to get him home from a tricky position.

Driven by David Butcher, Signman settled last and gave his backers a real run for their money. At times two or three lengths off the field in the final 800m he boomed home down the outside of the track in the final stages to end up winning comfortably.

Signman - 2yo by Lazarus Impressive Win on Debut

Trainer Arna Donnelly purchased him from the sales, as his half-brother Le Major had been a good performer for her as a juvenile. His dam Le Girl (Falcon Seelster) won two, and is out of Copper Beach.

He was a nice horse to work with, but did need time to develop.

"Early days working with him he needed a bit of time, so we just did a couple of preps with him but give him time to develop and have a really good spell. But this time around he really got serious. He had a great attitude, but just wasn't quite there early on and needed that break."

And as his work progressed Donnelly sought a suitable workout to get him some experience, but through a series of weather bombs the choices were limited. So she had to go a little bit quicker with his prep than she would've liked.

We actually went to take him to a learners heat at the workouts to learn a bit more, but due to recent rain events they only had trials. So we had to throw him in the deep end, and he ended up winning a qualifying heat and going three or four seconds under qualifying time. So that was a big tick for me to do that."

"The following week I took him back to a non win heat to see the mobile gate again and he handled that really well. And the next time he went out he was at the races and that was last Thursday."

Punters didn't miss him either, sending him out the favourite. But it was the way he finished off his race that really pleased his trainer.

"He was a little bit green and you can't blame him for that, I love the way he pinned his ears back and really dug in in the home straight and then pricked his ears at the line."

And not only was his trainer over the moon, he had a fair amount of support from some excited owners as well.

"He has some really cool owners, including Tommy Heptinstall (who is the former owner of galloping great, Tavistock), Nicky Cruickshank and her family members and a big syndicate from Tommy's Real Estate in Wellington so a lot of first time owners with smaller shares so that's really awesome, and I know a few of them had a sore head come Friday morning."

And now they know they have the horse power, they are now turning their sights to the future.

"He's gone to the paddock now and we are really going to concentrate on his three-year-old season now. He just needs to fill out a bit now and develop so he's enjoying spring grass."

"I actually really like his attitude. He's willing. He tries hard, he's just a cool little dude to have around the place. A real pleasure to have around the place actually."