TURF
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GREG Bennett made it a double in yesterday’s Double The Ton Bed Thomas Memorial Class 3 Handicap (1600m) at Tamworth.
After winning the first race with impressive debutante In A Wink he then served up Solitaire Princess and Hamel in the C3 for Solitaire Princess to prevail over her stablemate.
It then became a triple treat for the Scone trainer when belannoro romped in to win while Oh My Papa went within a long neck of making four winners on the day when only Knot Out beat the mare home in the Carlton Mid Tamworth Cup prelude.
However, three wins were plenty for Bennett after Solitaire Princess’s “pull in the weights” was the main deciding factor in the five-year-old mare posting a half length win over her six-year-old stablemate.
“We’ll see how she pulls up,” Bennett said of a mare who had not won for more than 12 months.
“We’ll see how she is. It was just good for her and the owners. Good for RT too.”
Robert Thompson rode the mare and registered his 3,993rd winner.
“Seven to go,” Bennett said as Thompson returned to the jockey’s room after another professional ride.
While Bennett finished 1,2 Tamworth trainer Sue Grills was third with Tabliope, who had led and fought on
strongly. “I really wanted to win that race,” Grills said of a race named in honour of one of her good gallopers and in a memorial to the late Bede Thomas, an Inverell owner and administrator for many years.
Grills won an Inverell Cup with Double The Ton.
“He was a very good horse,” she said.
“Won a stack of country cups. Won a Gilgandra Cup, a couple of Inverell cups and a Glen Innes Cup. He won at Rosehill for me one day. The Hawkesbury meeting was transferred to Rosehill.
“He was also a kids’ pony very quiet.”
n Belannoro won her third successive start for Greg Bennett and may now be headed to the Country Cup at Scone on Scone Cup day.
The daughter of Bel Danoro, who was having just her eighth race start Monday, has now won four times for her breeder, Ann Bryant, and her racing syndicate.
“She’s hit a purple patch of form,” Bennett said.
“She set the tempo today and invited the opposition to beat her.”
Belannoro led all the way for a length and three quarter win from Gelsomina.
“We’ll give her 10 days in the paddock now,” Bennett said.
“Freshen her up a bit. That was her fourth run back today.”
He said the Country Cup will offer a challenge.
“It’s a Country Cup with some country horses but will have Saturday city quality runners.”
n Greg Bennet’s good fortune at Tamworth wasn’t matched at Muswellbrook where his mare, Traffic, drew 17 in Monday’s Singleton Cup.
Fourth emergency, the Graham Payne-trained Ransom Moment, drew the one with Luke Griffith’s I Love Legs in barrier two and to be ridden by stable apprentice Meg Hoey.