An injury-plagued mare and an impressive young colt made it an afternoon trainer Jarrod Austin will never forget at Warwick Farm on Saturday.
Austin celebrated a breakthrough day in his career as comeback mare Spinnawitch ($5.50) brought up the trainer’s first stakes victory as well as a first winning double, in the Listed Winter Challenge (1600m).
The mare’s three-quarter length win in the final stakes race of the Sydney racing season came just over an hour after Austin produced two-year-old Urquidez to score impressively first-up in the Nissan Micra Sprint (1100m).
Spinnawitch and Urquidez make up a quarter of Austin’s eight-horse team and the 40-year-old trainer was all smiles as Spinnawitch returned to scale.
“This is a great thrill. My heart is thumping,” Austin said.
A long-time foreman to Denise McGrath, Austin took over McGrath’s team around 12 months ago when she decided to take a step back from training.
McGrath, who bred and owns both horses, was also on hand to celebrate the memorable day.
Five-year-old Spinnawitch returned from 14 months on the sidelines with a first-up win at Warwick Farm two weeks ago and went on with the job in the Winter Challenge as she chased down leader Forty Thirty with Winning Glory a long neck away third.
A stakes-placed filly as a three-year-old, Spinnawitch has come back from bone chips in her front joints followed by a bowed tendon and then a curbed hock in the past two years.
Austin now hopes to target more black-type races in the spring including the Newcastle Cup.
“This has been an awesome day,” he said.
“With the colt we knew he had plenty of ability but there is a lot more pressure from trials to raceday so it was great to see him do it today.
“With this mare we were quietly confident. We thought it was a pretty good Listed race for her.”
Spinnawitch’s jockey Blake Shinn also notched a winning double having won on She’s Clean while Peter Robl and Anthony Cummings combined for a winning double with Brave The Way and the impressive two-year-old She’s A Fox.
