It took just over a minute, 38 seconds for Top Ranked and Ellsberg to hit the line locked together in Saturday’s Epsom and then another five minutes to decided they couldn’t be separated in the first dead heat in the race for 149 years.
Both sets of connections celebrated together after a driving finish where only Ellsberg’s jockey Brenton Avdulla was confident he had won.
Ellsberg and Top Ranked finish in a dead heat in the Epsom.Credit:Racing NSW
“I thought I won. Hugh thought I won,” Avdulla said. “I’ll take a dead heat.”
Hugh Bowman on Top Ranked admitted: “I thought he won.”
But Ellsberg’s trainers Sterling Alexiou and Gerald Ryan thought they were done.
“I thought Annabel [Neasham]’s had got us on the line,” Ryan said of the Top Ranked trainer. “I couldn’t think of someone I would rather share it with it.”
Neasham was just hoping.
“I was more than happy with a dead heat when they crossed the line,” she said. “I thought Gerald’s won.
In a driving finish Ellsberg on the inside and Top Ranked, outside, squeezed out Hinged in the centre, who was only a long neck away in third.
But that was only the start of the drama. For the next five minutes the judge looked at the photo finish to find a margin, with Ellsberg and Top Ranked circling the winner’s stall they would share.
“Whenever there is grey in a photo finish they have to be careful to make sure they get the definition on nose and that’s what they did,” chief steward Marc Van Gestel said.
Brenton Avdulla and Hugh Bowman pose for photos after finishing in a dead heat on Ellsberg and Top Ranked in the TAB Epsom.Credit:Getty
“We had a look at the photo finish before the dead heat was declared as is the procedure, and we were happy with it.”
There was relief from both parties about sharing the win, but Bowman admitted in the stewards inquiry into interference in the closing stages that he should have probably looked at the film before correct weight.
The race didn’t need any more drama.
However, it was a finish that might never have happened with Ryan and Alexiou debating whether to run Ellsberg right up to acceptance time.
“We nearly missed this race because it wasn’t until 10 to nine on Tuesday that we decided to run,” Ryan said.
“Me and Sterling were sitting looking at each other after the ATC and then Brenton’s manager rang and we were just waiting for one of us to let run him.
“Thank good we did.”
Ellsberg gave Alexiou his first group 1 win and being a son of Spill The Beans, who Ryan trained, there was more to smile about.
“I delight for Sterling because he deserves that, but it is special for Spill The Beans because he is underestimated,” Ryan said.
Hugh Bowman with trainer Annabel Neasham.Credit:Getty
“It’s good when you buy the horse as a yearling and bring him along. We’ve been desperate to win a group 1 with him but I had basically given up hope.”
Elllsberg will stay in Sydney for the Five Diamonds, but Neasham has bigger fish to fry with Top Ranked, who she has nursed back from injury to become a group 1 winner.
“Unbelievable horse. Second up just two weeks from a run off a long layoff,” Neasham said. “The question is whether they give him a spot in the Cox Plate but they have to after that. He’s a group 1 horse.
“That was a big effort and three week into the Cox Plate will suit him.”
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