Nominations for the three main feature races of the Melbourne Spring Carnival have been announced. The nominations for the Melbourne Cup number one hundred and seventy-four with last year’s winner Twilight Payment named to defend his crown. Similarly, last year’s Cox Plate and Caulfield Cup winners, Sir Dragonet and Verry… Read More »
Racing NSW’s decision to take Warwick Farm, Rosehill and Canterbury out of play as racing venues until at least the end of August, because those tracks are situated in local government lockdown zones, means that the Group 2 Missile Stakes, which usually has its home at Rosehill, will now be… Read More »
While Chris Waller continues to set new records in Australia, across the ditch the Matamata based Jamie Richards similarly rules supreme in the training ranks. His statistics are quite stunning. For the 2020.21 season in New Zealand, Richards saddled 160 winners. Of the 21 Group 1 races in New Zealand,… Read More »
It was a long eleven race meeting, but the last race climax was well worth the wait for trainer Nicole Bruggemann and jockey Jessie Philpot who claimed the 2021 Great Northern Darwin Cup with the five-year-old Epaulette gelding Highly Decorated. The win came in Bruggemann’s first attempt at the Darwin… Read More »
Newmarket trainer Ismail Mohammed is making big plans for Away He Goes for the second half of the year after the five-year-old gelding scored a gallant second place behind Trueshan and Holly Doyle in the Group 1 Goodwood Cup over 3200m last week. The race was run in very heavy… Read More »
Alligator Blood, who had a jump-out in-between races at the Sunshine Coast yesterday, could not have produced a better performance in that particular context as he continues on the comeback trail to race fitness. Jockey Jimmy Orman had the Group 1 winner travelling well within himself throughout, yet he still… Read More »
OTI Racing had tweeted the disappointing news that their well performed mare True Self … ‘is now unlikely to make her way out to Melbourne this Spring Carnival due to a suspensory issue.’ As part of her international schedule the Willie Mullins trained daughter of Oscar has made her presence… Read More »
Is this a racing first in Australia? Is this the first time an official father and daughter training partnership has won a premiership? While that fact has still to be verified, there can be no doubt about the level of emotion when the Ipswich Trainers’ Premiership went right down to… Read More »
The Chris Nash trained Mayameen (Simon Miller), once again showed just how much she is enjoying life at the Top End when she prevailed in a two-horse battle with the Jason Manning trained Niewand (Vanessa Arnott) to take out the Palmerston Sprint over 1200m in Darwin. The three-year-old chestnut filly… Read More »
The Will Clarken trained Beau Rossa ($3.90) scored his fifth win from only ten starts when he landed the Listed Lightning Stakes over 1050m at Morphettville on a testing heavy 10 surface. The victory, which came in Beau Rossa’s first run since his unplaced finish in the Group 1 Goodwood… Read More »
Steve Tregea’s amazing touch as a trainer continued unabated at Eagle Farm where he bookended the meeting with Champagne Aunty and Eloquently. Eloquently underlined both her burgeoning ability and her mental toughness when taking out a QTIS Three-Year-Old Fillies Handicap in the last race on the card. The three-year-old daughter… Read More »
The racing public who attended Eagle Farm today had their afternoon’s entertainment cut short when they had to vacate the track by 3.30pm to meet the protocols set by the Queensland Government after it had announced a snap three-day lockdown earlier in the day. The two races scheduled after 3.30pm… Read More »
Boom apprentice Kyle Wilson-Taylor ticked another significant box in his career when he rode his first Saturday Metropolitan winner at Doomben today. The young hoop partnered the very smart Hinged to victory in the opening race on the card to a clear-cut victory to take the Michael Nolan trained runner’s… Read More »
The participation of international horses in this year’s Melbourne Cup Carnival remains pretty much in limbo at this stage, but the early signs are not good for those who like a good portion of overseas involvement in their Melbourne Carnival recipe. Yes, it is still a little over three months… Read More »
After being criticised publicly by a number trainers and after holding in-house meetings with the Trainers’ Association chiefs, Racing Victoria has now come out and confirmed that they would reconsider its options moving into next season in order to try and make the implementation of next year’s ‘race-free week’ more… Read More »
The serious expressions on the faces of trainers as they filed into a private meeting at Eagle Farm after the last race on Wednesday told its own story. While it was a closed meeting, the fact that Eagle Farm’s offering for Wednesday’s midweek, metropolitan meeting was a mere six races… Read More »
As more trainers become vocal in their opposition to Racing Victoria’s race-free week next week, the Australian Trainers’ Association (ATA) has attempted to get Racing Victoria to re-think their decision, but they came up empty after their late push for a change to next week’s racing schedule was rejected. ATA… Read More »
Catalyst, the well performed Darci Brahma gelding who won six out of ten starts for trainer Clayton Chipperfield before pulling up lame in the Group 2 Shorts at Randwick back on September 9, 2020 (in a race won by Classique Legend) has pleased his new trainer Tony Pike in preparation… Read More »
In welcome news, jockey Laura Lafferty has been cleared to resume race riding from July 31. Lafferty has been sidelined for more than a month following injuries sustained in a serious fall during the Swan Hill Carnival in mid-June. While Lafferty was lucky to escape with no broken bones, the… Read More »
Michael Kent Jnr is the latest in what is becoming a fairly long line of Victorian trainers to register both his disappointment and concern at Racing Victoria’s decision to schedule a race-free week from Monday July 26 to Friday July 30. The volume of criticism has been turned up as… Read More »
