WHAT to do with a horse sold as a yearling for $2.8 million, touted as a highly-talented two-year-old in a strong Sydney stable then branded a high-price flop and sold online for $75,000?

Love him of course.

Mount Fuji was sold for $2.8 million at the 2019 Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale.

With a race record of four starts, no wins, two placings and $20,850 in prizemoney, he was put up for sale on the Inglis web site and was bought by Gold Coast trainer Gillian Heinrich.

Still an entire, Mount Fuji’s first start for Heinrich resulted in a second placing and last Wednesday at Ipswich racetrack he won for the first time, in the Fertpro Maiden Handicap (1200m).

The win took Mount Fuji’s prizemoney for his new owners to $27,500, more than a third of the way to paying back their purchase price.

Of course it would need 100 times that to pay off the original price but that’s all water – or tears – under the bridge now.

Mount Fuji’s original price tag is a minor point for jockey Alannah Fancourt who rides the son of Snitzel in all his work and was on board for Wednesday’s win.

Mount Fuji ($6) won by a length and three quarters from Laraina ($8.50) with Da Party Gal ($6) a short neck away in third.

“The horse is usually a little bit naughty in the gates but he was really well behaved today and he jumped out real nice and we got a nice spot – about midfield – where I thought we’d be and he went to sleep; he really relaxed today. He doesn’t usually relax so nicely,” Fancourt said.

“We travelled nice and relaxed and when we got to the turn he just blew them away. He showed a turn of foot; that was something new. I was surprised he was so relaxed.”

What did she put that down to?

“He’s had a massive stable change,” she said.

“He’s in a much quieter stable. We’ve been able to do a bit of jumping, a lot of stuff to just relax him.

“He’ll go on the track and gallop but he’s just really calm with us.

“I ride him in all his work; no-one else has been on him. Maybe today, just him knowing me and I know him he just relaxed a bit nicer maybe.

“It’s actually quite common that horse and jockeys get along and some jockeys and horses aren’t a good combination but he’s a stallion, obviously he’s quirky because he relaxes for some and not others but, I don’t know, I just think today they ran along over the 1200 and he was just able to be comfortable.

“He has had a throat operation so he was able to just breathe in his rhythm and it just went to plan.”

What did she think of a horse being sold for $2.8 million?

“It’s a lot of money. Too much money for me,” she said with a laugh.

On a more realistic note, obviously enough horses are likely to react well to the individual treatment Mount Fuji gets at Gillian Heinrich’s stable.

“100 percent,” Fancourt said.

“Fuji does all his work by himself; he never has a mate to work with and he is never asked for any more than what he gives.

“So we just keep him like a sleeping giant. Even though we haven’t had to make him like that; he’s just been like that with us. I don’t know, there’s no expectation of him. He’s just one of our horses and we look after him.”

Lani Fancourt was apprenticed to Tony Gollan and stayed with him for a couple of years as a senior jockey then decided she needed a change so she moved to Heinrich’s stables in May.

“I’ve had a lot of success with her just in the last six months,” she said.

“It’s been a great change and the opportunity is there with the Heinrich stable and that’s what I’ve had to go for and I’m kicking home winners with them and, yeah, I’m very happy.”

Maybe the good treatment is working for the horse and for the jockey?

“100 percent. It’s a good combination,” she said.

Fancourt was part of jockey Tegan Harrison’s wonderful story in The Ipswich Tribune last week, riding Commandeering, who had nearly died after swallowing a bunya nut tree leaf.

“Oh, Fluffy. Tegan’s horse,” she said.

“Tegan’s been a mentor to me like forever. She was a senior rider for Tony when I came through as an apprentice.

“She’s been training that horse kind of on the side with Ben [Hull] so riding it when I knew how much she had to do with it, it was pretty special.”