PG . 17 on her , just in case there was a little muscle soreness there . I thought to myself ; she ’ s in the finals , whatever happens , happens . At that point , with her maybe being a little sore , I never , ever thought that she ’ d win the Derby . Whatever it was , the Equissage and the Pulse Therapy had obviously helped her immensely .’
Ken , Belinda , their son , Mitchell , and their friends Trina , Kathy and Darrin , were sitting in the grandstand watching and couldn ’ t believe it when Phil and Prada walked out with that score !
‘ Phil had shown her extremely well . We ’ ve had some great wins with Shine ’ s Like Metallic , but Prada ’ s win was both a shock and a surprise for us . It ’ s been such a great journey with Phil and Bernie , with some awesome results and we ’ re so grateful ! We ’ ve had various horses with them over the last 7 years . Shiny won a Futurity at Toowoomba , and Prada won the Victorian Open Futurity in September , 2022 , in a threeway run-off . Now she ’ s won the Derby , so it ’ s definitely been exciting ! Our friend Trina ’ s horse got third in the event , too , so we had some celebrating to do !
Future competition plans for Prada are looking good , with Phil planning on taking her to Scone , the Victorian Futurity and to St George .
‘ I ’ m also planning to show her later in the year , or next year ,’ Belinda says . ‘ I ’ ve never shown Prada before , so I ’ m looking forward to it . Phil will have her for all her Classics , but we ’ ve decided we ’ re not going to do too many weekend shows . We want to look after Prada , so we don ’ t want to push her too hard . She means so much to us . We just love the Lethal Lena progeny .’
Belinda and Ken thought Prada was special from the start , and Belinda says , that after taking the mare on , she ’ s always wanted to make Pam proud by doing the right thing by her as the breeder , admitting a great respect for Pam .
‘ Another exciting thing is that we have two of her embryos due this season , that are by Shines Like Metallic , and we ’ ll be embryoing her back to Shiney , this breeding season . We also have her booked her in to Stevie Rey Von for an embryo transfer , after the Victorian Futurity , and we ’ re also going to try and embryo her to Dual Rey as well . So we have a few really nice foals to look forward to .’
Phil Dawson and Merada in Prada Q-96354 and team
AQHA JULY / AUGUST ISSUE 2023