With the conclusion of the Queensland Winter Carnival in South-East Queensland, there is a subtle shift of focus to the two-month long North Queensland Winter Racing Carnival, which commenced last Saturday … and which incorporates Cup days at Rockhampton, MacKay, Townsville and Cairns, as well as a host of supporting feature races.
Last weekend the headlines belonged to Logan Street Lion, trainer Ricky Vale and jockey Raul Silvera Olivera, who took out the $150 000 Rockhampton Cup, and trainer Jeff Dunn, jockey Ricky Dunn, who landed the $100 000 Rockhampton Newmarket with Star Of Gomer.
Today it was the Mackay Newmarket that took centre stage … and, more particularly, trainer Mark Cochrane and, once again jockey Raul Silvera Olivera, who produced a gem of a ride, aboard Real Key coming through hard up along the inside rail, to steal the Mackay Newmarket away from the $3.80 favourite Slippin’ Jimmy in the final few strides.
Real Key is a thriving ten-year-old … with his run of results standing as a credit to his trainer.
A veteran of eighty-seven races, Real Key was winning for the third time here in his last four starts. It is true that his previous two wins over this period were at country meetings at Emerald and Thangool, but he grabbed the opportunity to lift his profile in the Mackay Newmarket in compelling fashion to salute at odds of $14.
The only time Real Key did not come away with the win in his last four starts came when he went to town and finished a creditable fifth, 1.90 lengths behind Peshwa in the Battle Of The Bush final at Eagle Farm two weeks ago.
The two south-east Queensland trainers who sent runners out in the Newmarket, David Vandyke and Mark Currie had to settle for second and third place with Slippin’ Jimmy and Secret Plan respectively.
It looked like their runners were ambushed by the Silvera ride, but it should be noted that Real Key carried 2.5kg less that Slippin’ Jimmy and a whopping 6kg more than Secret Plan.
It was a very busy finish with only 1.60 lengths covering the first six runners past the post.