Fresh from a successful autumn carnival, a confident Tim Clark continued on his winning way with a treble at Canterbury on Wednesday.
Clark enjoyed a career-best day in the saddle earlier this month when he won the Group One Doncaster on Sacred Choice and then the Group One Galaxy on Atomic Force just 40 minutes later.
Victories on Alli’s Aria, Chart and Gogra Gogra at the Canterbury midweek meeting took the in-form jockey’s season tally in Sydney to 45.5 wins, edging him one in front of injured rider Kerrin McEvoy in fifth place on the Sydney premiership.
“Definitely riding a couple of big winners over the carnival is helping getting me even better opportunities,” Clark said.
“Obviously after riding a Group One double you can’t get much more confident than that. It gives you a big boost and a lot of self belief and I just want to keep rolling along from that now.”
The 24-year-old’s Canterbury treble also took him a step closer to his season goal of 50 city winners.
“I thought if I could ride 50 winners for the season it would be a good effort, I rode 36 last year,” he said.
“I’m well into the forties now but if I head up to Brisbane a few times over the winter carnival that’s obviously going to slow it down a little bit.
“But if I continue riding well I should be able to get to the 50.”
Clark brought up his treble on the Chris Waller-trained Gogra Gogra, who came from last along the inside to take out the Guineas Restaurant Handicap (1900m) over stablemate Savannah’s Choice.
“They wanted me to ride him quiet and give him the chance to run the trip out strongly,” Clark said.
“He relaxed really well in the run and did quite a good job because they didn’t go overly quick. He really sprinted well the last furlong (200m).”
Earlier in the day the Tim Martin-trained Carved In Stone broke through for his first win at his seventh start with a 1-1/2-length victory in the Ascot Club Maiden Handicap (1250m).
Carved In Stone showed plenty of promise as a two-year-old last season, finishing third in the Group Two Todman Stakes on debut before running seventh in Crystal Lily’s Golden Slipper at just his second start.
Meanwhile, next Wednesday’s meeting has been transferred from Canterbury to Warwick Farm.
Canterbury plays host to barrier trials this Friday and has a meeting on Saturday week.
AAP TURF
