Chris Waller equalled his season best tally and edged closer to a century with a winning double at Rosehill on Saturday.
First Look led in a stable quinella in the McWilliam’s Handicap (1300m) which brought up the Rosehill trainer’s 94th win in Sydney this season, the same total he finished on last year when second to Peter Snowden (98) in the premiership race.
Waller, who was in Brisbane for the Queensland Oaks meeting, had already prepared an earlier winner when three-year-old Coup Ay Tea claimed his first Australian success in the ARA Wines Handicap (1500m).
With less than two months of the season remaining, Waller holds a 16-1/2 win advantage over Snowden who got on the board early at Rosehill courtesy of two-year-old Galah.
First Look was ridden by Sydney’s premier jockey Nash Rawiller who angled into the clear at the top of the straight and got everything out of the mare to hold off the late charge of stablemate We Betcha.
We Betcha came out from underneath her stablemate inside the final 200 metres but the winning post came too soon as First Look held on by a short neck with Divya third.
“Nash has had a lot of luck on this mare and she took closer order today like she did last start at Canterbury and it showed,” stable representative Liam Prior said.
“It was an aggressive ride in the straight and it was a good win.”
Rawiller, who is closing in on a second straight Sydney jockeys’ title, has only ridden First Look in five of her 25 starts but Saturday’s victory was his third on the mare.
AAP TURF
