HOME BASE TRAINING DOUBLE FOR TEAM SEARS

By Graham Potter | Saturday, July 18, 2026

The Tony and Maddysen Sears training partnership only had two runners at their home base meeting at the Gold Coast on July 18 … and they came away with two winners in the form of the three-year-old chestnut gelding Sealord and the three-year-old brown filly Geitz.

These two Sears runners, who saluted at different ends of the distance spectrum, were both winning for the first time.

Sealord set the tone when winning the opening race on the card … a Maiden Plate over 20250m.

The son of Ocean Park had finished in fourth place in his previous two starts without ever threatening the result (he was unplaced in his remaining four starts before that) so this win represented a big step forward as, not only did he put the in on the board, but he did so by a clearcut 2.60 length margin under the guidance of Fed Larson, who is fast becoming a regular contributor to the on-going success of Team Sears.

Sealord ($5.50) went back to second last early and raced all of nine lengths off the lead as the field moved out into the back straight, and he was still a long way back when Larson asked the sears trained runner to start improving his position on the sweep to the home turn.

He had to do so wide out on the track but, by the time the field came to the point of the home turn and began to straighten, Sealord, who cornered five wide, was now almost up in the leading line having reduced the deficit to the leader to a little over a length.

Sealord then started to go through his gears, slowly at first before his winning momentum kicked in and he reached the lead with 200m left to run.

At that stage, Mister Blaze ($10), who had moved to the head of affairs in the first half of the straight, remained a threat along the inside and Five Of Us ($6) was trying to stick on, but it soon became apparent that Sealord had those two threats covered and he came away to win with plenty in hand.
_______________________________________________________________________

Three races later Geitz earned the Sears camp a second visit to the winners’ enclosure on the day when she triumphed in a QTIS Three-Year-Old Plate over 1000m.

It had been a fairly long time coming for the daughter of Better Than Ready, who claimed her first victory in her thirteenth start after previously posting three runner-up results and two third place finishes. Fred Larson again did the honours in the saddle.

Larson opted to go back on Geitz from a wide draw (barrier eight out f nine) and, in so doing, he gave the frontrunners a six length start, and this time,

Larson bided his time in the sweep to the turn, cornering at the rear of the field, now with a little over four lengths to make up … and Geitz had to be hard ridden in the first half of the straight as Larson endeavoured to get the message across that a big finishing effort would be required here.

But, even with Geitz responding to Larson’s urgings, the path Larson had to navigate coming from behind would do Geitz no favours.

The pair had to accelerate aggressively into a gap in-between runners with 150m left to run … then switch in marginally at full speed to line up a path between another two t=runners … then take that gap … and finally, they had to maintain that effort all the way to the line up ultimately prevail in what had been a fairly pressurised finish t score by 0.54 lengths.

More articles