Beaton upbeat about another city winner

By Glenn Davis

Up-and-coming trainer Renita Beaton is hopeful of landing another city winner when she heads to Doomben on Wednesday. 

Beaton has only been training since the 2021-22 season.

She is looking to claim her sixth midweek city winner after accepting with five horses, spearheaded by Hollywood Epic in the Class 2 Handicap over 1350 metres.

“I’ve only ever had two starters at a metro meeting, so this will be my biggest representation,” Beaton said.

Beaton revealed a call out of the blue from retired Lennox Head physician Dr Bob Watson saw Hollywood Epic join her stables at Fenwick Farm at Canungra in the Gold Coast hinterland.

“I’ve been at Fenwick Farm for about a year now and one day after the races I got a call from Dr Watson asking me if I’d train Hollywood Epic,” Beaton said.

“It was a call out of the blue and he ended up giving me four horses to train.”

The New Zealand-born Beaton has 20 horses in work after moving to Australia in 2016.

She spent five years in Australia before heading to Hong Kong for six years.

“I used to work for Rob Heathcote and I rode Buffering in trackwork before I moved to Hong Kong and I stayed there for six years,” Beaton said.

Hollywood Epic has only been in Beaton’s care for four starts, but she quickly found the key to the son of Shamus Award.

“He’s full of surprises and he had blinkers on for his first two starts for me,” Beaton said.

“He drew bad and was ridden upside down when he ran second in his first run at Beaudesert then he finished third at Warwick.

“I took the blinkers off when he won his last two starts at Ballina and Ipswich and we had him smothered up in the run.”

Hollywood Epic is coming off a last start win in a 1350 metre Benchmark race at Ipswich on March 21.

“I thought his last win at Ipswich was quite impressive considering there was a question mark over him not having run for five weeks,” Beaton said.

Beaton has no major plans in mind for Hollywood Epic but soon hopes to step him up in distance after his run on a rain affected track.

“I want to see if he can get 1600 metres this campaign, so I’ll slowly step him up in distance to see if he could be a middle-distance type of stayer,” Beaton said.

“There’s no rule in racing and we’ll see how he handles a wet track on Wednesday. He’s got an ordinary action and swings one leg but I think he’ll handle it.”