By Brodie Nickson
Beaudesert trainer Brian Gentle has a small team in work but has his eyes pinned on next year’s Queensland Winter Carnival.
His emerging three-year-old Destinys Summit has been brilliant this preparation, winning three races in a row despite nothing going to plan.
It’s a family bloodline Gentle has worked a lot with; and he has trained for Destiny Thoroughbreds’ Brett Knight for many years now.
“The first horse I trained for him was called Destiny Rising in Sydney and he was a half-brother to [Destinys Summit] mother,” Gentle said.
“He won his Maiden at Canterbury by four or five-lengths so we are sort of carrying on the same line that most horses are called Destinys something.”
Gentle broke in Destiny Summit’s Dam, Destiny’s Revolt, though she had nowhere near the ability her first foal does as she struggled throughout her career to retire a Maiden.
“She was always the one that we’d earmarked to carry on the family line,” Gentle said.
“She is doing a good job so far with him and we have got a yearling half-brother to him as well.”
Gentle had a big opinion of Destinys Summit after showing ability from day one.
“I remember the first gallop I gave him as a yearling I rang my mate and said, ‘this is the best one of the lot we’d had’,” Gentle said.
“From day one he has just been an absolute natural. I broke him in myself.
“He obviously won his first two trials and then he sort of went off the boil a little bit and we couldn’t work out why.”
“In the end we sort of knew he got his leg over the inside of the walking machine one day and we thought he was fine because he was sound and everything, but he had another couple of trials where he started hanging and doing everything wrong. [We] had the chiropractor to him and he popped his shoulder out.”