Top Toowoomba trainer Lindsay Hatch has Wham targeting the Weetwood and Sayl due to take his place in the Toowoomba Cup with the stable looking to have its say in the two traditional main feature races of the year at the Clifford Park venue when Toowoomba hosts the Queensland Saturday Metropolitan meeting this Saturday.
Hatch already has a Weetwood win to his name … a win which always holds a special place in the list of achievements of any Toowoomba based trainer … having taken out the 2020 edition of the race with the Rothesay mare Jadenton, which was actually his first runner in the Weetwood, in what turned out to be on huge day out for the Hatch family.
A win in the Toowoomba Cup would complete the set. While remaining true to his well-established Toowoomba brand … there will be no let-up there … Hatch is also about to break new ground for both himself and on Queensland racing scene by setting up a serious and ultimately fairly sizeable satellite stable in North Queensland, based at Townsville.
“John Horan approached me. He has got Ares Racing which he set up in Townsville,” explained Hatch. “He just approached me on Townsville Cup Day and asked me if I would be interested in setting up there. I said yeah, and then he flew to Toowoomba for a meeting.
“We have thought it through. I didn’t rush into it. We looked into it. I’ve had a couple of long chats with my wife. I spoke to a few people. I spoke to my good friend Tony Gollan. He recommended it. He said I was mad if I didn’t do it because John basically offered me something I couldn’t refuse.
“John has got a house and stables there. A few protocols have got to change in the setup before I can take over, but we are in the midst of setting everything up.”
As Hatch points out, “Stables like Chris Waller, Kris Lees and a lot of stables are doing it now, but nobody’s ever done it in North Queensland.
“I’ve got the right bloke to run it for me in Townsville … that’s Martin Haley. He’s been with me for quite a while. He knows my protocols. He knows how I want to run things.
“I couldn’t do it without the right person going there because I’ve also still got to concentrate on Toowoomba. I don’t want to take my eye off the ball there, so it is very important that we have got the right person to run it … and Martin is the right bloke.
“I’m friends with a lot of people who ride work In Townsville, so we’ll have no problem having the horses in work there.
“We’ll start probably with ten or twelve horses and build from there, but John is keen to have about thirty in work by March next year which is a nice number with which to attack the carnivals up there … so we are looking forward to it.
“We can do Mackay, Bowen and you have also got Cairns, which we can do from Townsville … whereas, with the Rockhampton races, I will probably tackle them and their carnival from Toowoomba.
“But look, I’m excited about it and very keen to take it on. It’s a good opportunity for me, and it is also very good for my owners too … with the horses we can place up there with the QTIS money on offer and so forth.
“I’m going to guide John in the right way. He is keen to get syndications going so I’ll be looking for new owners as well who would like to race their horses in Townsville.
“We are happy with our protocols in Toowoomba and Townsville will be run no different.
“You can’t just rest on your laurels though.
“It’s going to be hard work, and we are prepared to do that … and we are going to give it one-hundred-and-ten percent.”
