By Glenn Davis
Central Queensland trainer John O’Sing is hopeful Marway’s second up record will help repel the John Manzelmann juggernaut in the Open Handicap at Rockhampton’s Callaghan Park on Tuesday.
Mackay-based Manzelmann saddles up five runners in the nine-horse field over 1200 metres but O’Sing rates topweight Friendly Dragon and Bold Endeavour as the two biggest dangers to Marway.
Marway is coming off a first-up second to Toowoomba six-year-old Bogey Man when he went down by three lengths after trying to lead all the way over the same trip at Rockhampton on March 5.
“It was a good run but he was just too fat,” O’Sing explained.
“He had a setback before the race and was out for four to five weeks with a cracked foot.
“He had to wear heart bar shoes for a couple of weeks and then he wore easy boots to protect his hoof.
“I took them off only two days before he raced so he did a good job first-up under the circumstances.
“He’s a lot fitter now and I think he’ll be very hard to beat.”
Marway has never won in five starts first-up but has been beaten only once in four starts second-up from a spell.
O’Sing turns 64 in May and has eight horses in work after retiring several years ago as a painter for Queensland Rail.
“I took a voluntary early retirement package from Queensland Rail so all I do now is train my horses and I enjoy it,” he said.
O’Sing is best known as the trainer of former star sprinter Our Boy Malachi.
Dubbed the “Rockhampton Rocket”, Our Boy Malachi’s career came to an abrupt end when he bled for a second time in the $1m Darley Classic at Flemington in 2018.
O’Sing won 12 races including 10 straight with Our Boy Malachi before he was weighted out of the provincials and transferred to Team Hawkes in Sydney in June, 2014.
In his last start for O’Sing, Our Boy Malachi won the Newmarket Handicap in June, 2014, giving him his second successive victory in the central Queensland feature.
Racing Queensland webnews March 23