Racing: Take It Out rekindles memories for Vances

The truth is Maija Vance owes his entire successful career to Jillings. Photo / Thinkstock

You can't invent storylines like this one.

Maija Vance comes back from Australia for a two-week holiday and ends up riding Take It Out to victory on Legends raceday at Ellerslie yesterday for her training parents, Jenny and Bob Vance.

If that's all there was to it the story wouldn't be hugely remarkable.

But the race just happened to be the C.M. Jillings Cup in honour of one of the true legends of the New Zealand turf.

Bob Vance happened to have been apprenticed to Colin Jillings and with a mutual admiration society going on between the pair they created one of the most successful combinations in the record book.

The likes of McGinty and The Phantom Chance's Cox Plate headline what is a huge victory list.

"That's the only thing I've ever got off Jillo -- I've won his cup," joked Bob Vance.

The truth is Vance owes his entire successful career to Jillings, but he could make jokes like that yesterday because the former champion trainer was in the Chathams, almost certainly ploughing his way through a crayfish.

This was a big win by Take It Out. The rail was out 9m from its true position yesterday, making it very difficult to come from off the pace.

Take It Out was well off the speed and did a great job to make a big run to lodge a home-straight challenge to the leader Spreadeagled, who looked certain to win for at least the first half of the home straight.

Spreadeagled ducked out on Take It Out in the final stages, but Maija Vance did not panic and pushed Take It Out past in the closing 75m.

After a lengthy stint riding in Queensland, Vance recently moved to South Australia.

"I love it there," said the 23-year-old, who has ridden "around 150 winners".

The win did not surprise Bob Vance. "He's been running big races in strong fields."

Snapshot maintained an unbeaten record in three starts when helanded some big bets with a runaway victory.

The Graham Richardson-trained gelding was backed in late to start at $2.80 from $4.