Brownes eye another victory in The Showdown
Emma-Lee and David Brown's training operation notched its top achievement with Mcgaw's win in The Showdown at Caulfield, and they seek to match it exactly a year later.
Last year, McGaw lifted the $1 million Showdown, marking the Brownes' best Australian result then, before the three-year-old added the Group 2 Danehill Stakes (1100m) at Flemington last spring.
The Brownes will field Lomu in this Saturday's The Showdown (1200m), where unlike McGaw, he will debut on the track.
McGaw had broken his maiden at Pakenham first-up before Caulfield, and it was post a Tuesday gallop at Caulfield that the Brownes opted to proceed with Lomu on Saturday.
"It's a little bit of a throw at it but he's trialled up good," Emma-Lee Browne said.
"At this time of year in two-year-old racing you come up against a horse or horses that have won, so we thought if he came through his gallop all good, it's an idea.
"A lot of the people that were in McGaw are in this horse as well, so it would be very nice to be there again and go and give it a bit of a nudge as well."
Lomu shares McGaw's sire I Am Immortal and was purchased inexpensively at $10,000, just like his predecessor.
"The same reason I loved McGaw, I love this horse," Browne said.
"He was big, he was scopey, he had big ears. He wandered around having a look at things and seemed pretty happy.
"Hopefully he can run similar."
The trainer values foals from I Am Immortal highly, even as their sale prices have climbed lately thanks to McGaw's Danehill success.
"Luckily our first two have been pretty good buys and I really rated the stallion, I think he's very, very good," Browne said.
"A lot of the horses by I Am Immortal can really gallop and have shown something."
The previous Showdown win drew additional syndicate members, with Browne noting further success would be appreciated.
"We've been able to increase our numbers by a fair few," Browne said.
"We've got a few more yearlings this year, so it's an exciting time of the year to have the young ones around."
Additionally, the Brownes commence Basilinna's autumn slate in the Group 2 Peter Young Stakes (1800m) after Tuesday's Pakenham jump-out.
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