Taranaki gelding Tisse took an impressive step forward to his major summer target in a couple of weeks when dominating the Bill Tito Book Repair Specialist 2100 at Trentham on Sunday.

The Allan Sharrock-trained five-year-old has been in a purple patch of form, winning one and finishing runner-up in three of his last five starts, and he was duly backed into $1.70 favouritism for his weekend assignment.

From his outside barrier in the eight-horse field, Tisse was taken back to settle at the rear of the field by jockey Kelly Myers, who was happy to bide her time off the pace.

Off a slow tempo, the Taranaki hoop asked her charge to slowly improve from the 800m mark before launching him three-wide close to the turn, and he quickly bounded to the lead.

Opawa Jack was brave in trying to stick with the talented gelding, but Tisse’s quality shone through and he ran away to a 2-1/4 length victory.

Myers was impressed with Tisse’s performance and is excited for what the future has instore for the gelding.

“I don’t think it would have mattered how I rode that horse today, he was just a class above,” she said.

“He is a grouse horse because he drops the bridle and when you ask him to go, he goes. He picked them up and spat them out like that.

“He got to them too quickly, I should have probably sat and waited a little bit longer, but he was genuine to the line. He probably did wait a bit and then he really knuckled down.

“It’s onwards and upwards, he is a very exciting horse.”

Sharrock was pleased with what he saw in Tisse’s final hit-out before heading to Ellerslie on New Year’s Day to have his first tilt at black-type in the Gr.3 Queen Elizabeth II Cup (2400m).

“She (Myers) took off at the right time and he did it on his ear basically,” Sharrock said.

“It was a good lead-up to the race (Queen Elizabeth) we want to try and win. He goes better right-handed, as you saw with Opie (Bosson, jockey) on (when victorious at Ellerslie over 2100m in October), so that has always been his target race.”

Sharrock said Tisse will have a quiet time in the interim, with the gelding not requiring a lot of work to maintain his fitness.

“He doesn’t do a lot of work because anaerobically he is clean-winded,” he said. “Lucky for a stayer we don’t have to put too much work into him, and he is so relaxed in a race, it won’t worry him.”