The feel the Joanne Hillis-trained gelding Ridley gave Bradley was a bit better than average as soon as he got out on the track to head around to the starting gates.
''When I did my preliminaries, he just gave me the sense that he's a special horse,'' Bradley said.
Sure enough, the son of Handsome Ransom lived up to Bradley's quick summation, continuing his rise through the grades with a win against older and more experienced horses in the $25,000 metric mile, with The Solitaire and Santos putting in nice runs in behind to fill the placings.
''Today I just made him jump clean, held him together nicely, and kept him travelling,'' Bradley said.
''He was purring the whole way.''
Bradley has no doubt we will see more of the 4yr-old, and over longer distances than the 1600m he tackled on Saturday.
''I got around to the start and said to the boys at the start, `this horse is going to make a beautiful stayer','' he said.
''He goes along with beautiful breathing and has a great stride on him - he's so clean and fluent.
''As he gets older and with more racing, he'll improve. He's definitely an exciting horse that can go all the way.''
Hills was still shaking after the race as she celebrated a win on her home track and contemplated her next plans with the winner of four of his eight starts.
''We'll just keep going until he says no more, but I think we will put him away for winter,'' she said.
''He's not exactly a big figure of a horse.''
