Ultimate Gaze has turned his career around by winning his third straight race at Queanbeyan yesterday.

The four-year-old gelding, which originally showed no future prospects as a race horse, has come into his own and proved he is a force to be reckoned with this preparation.

Trainer Barbara Joseph is thrilled that Ultimate Gaze was able to claim his third win in just seven starts.

“We are over the moon with him,” Ms Joseph said.

“With the horse last year we were thinking about sacking him but we took him home to Bombala and put him out in the back paddock with the cattle and the sheep and gave him six months off.

“He must of thought that was pretty hard work and he has come back a completely different horse.

“He has surprised all of us.”

Ms Joseph feels that Ultimate Gaze saves his best work for the races.

“His trackwork doesn’t show what he has been doing in his races and he has just come out and turned it all around,” she said.

“A good spell did the trick.”

The trainer believes that the slow start to his career has a lot to do with his breeding.

“He is an Intergaze and they do get better as they get older and probably giving him time was the main thing,” Ms Joseph said.

“He was a bugger of a horse to train. He didn’t want to do things, he didn’t like wet tracks, he wasn’t a good doer and I think it was just immaturity.”

Ms Joseph feels that Ultimate Gaze may need a slight break before his next start.

“The track was very hard and I think he may have jarred up a little bit,” Joseph said.

“He was a bit tender coming up the straight and I thought he might have won easier than that.

“Jeff Penza [jockey] said he was feeling the track.

We’ll probably give him two or three weeks before we look for another race.”