Cook, who’s owned a number of good gallopers in the past including Jakpil and Lady Jakeo, is a former president of the Hawthorn football club and has been battling illness recently. Last night’s seven point loss by Hawthorn, at the hands of Essendon, was not the start to the weekend Cook was looking for.

It was the second consecutive win for Kepero in today’s race. Last start the three-year-old colt scored a long neck win in a 1500 metre maiden at Ballarat.

Kepero ($9-$12) races in the same colours as the recent Adelaide Cup placegetter Silver Baron, who’s also trained by John Hawkes.

Wayne Hawkes, the stable foreman for the Hawkes family in Melbourne, was impressed with today’s victory.

"It was a very good win," Hawkes said. "He’s a very gutsy horse and I was impressed with his performance today."

"He didn’t have many things go his way during the race, so it was a pretty good performance under the circumstances," he added.

Kepero, with Darren Gauci up, had to show plenty of fight to hold out the well backed Media Magnate ($5-$7-$5 fav) in a driving finish. A half head separated the two at the finishing post.

The roughie Scenic Quest, a recent class one winner at Wangaratta, grabbed third place ahead of Gentrified.

Luther’s Luck (Acidity-Prosperina II)
Luther’s Luck has the distinction of winning more races at Sandown than any other horse (nine wins). In all he won 19 races from 79 starts including the 1986 JJ Liston Stakes and the 1987 GJ Coles (now Sandown) Stakes.

DETAILS
First KEPERO (RG & Mrs DE Cook’s chestnut colt 3 years Star Way-Miss Dingleberry $9-$12) Darren Gauci for John Hawkes (Flemington). Second MEDIA MAGNATE (grey gelding 3 years O’Reilly-Madiya) Kerrin McEvoy for Michael Moroney (Flemington). Third SCENIC QUEST (bay gelding 3 years Scenic-Crown Hope $51-$61) Brendan Fenech for Keith Newman (Seymour). Margins: Half head x 1 ½ lengths.

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