Matthew Dale will wait until the very last day of the season - when he takes a handy team to his hometown Canberra races - to see whether he can steal the country trainers' premiership off Luke Griffith.
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The astute conditioner is three wins shy of the disqualified Griffith (52) with Newcastle trainer Paul Perry (48) a further win back in third.
"I'll be having a couple of runners at Moruya on Monday, a couple at Wagga on Tuesday and a couple at Canberra on Friday," Dale said. "There's a chance of having three winners there, but I haven't given it too much thought to be honest. I've just tried to find where they're best placed and then let everything else sort itself out. I think it's the first season we've had more than 50 winners [overall] so we're very happy with that and we've maintained a good strike rate for over that amount of winners."
Griffith's seemingly routine charge to the title was halted in late April when he was banned for four years on drug charges.
Ryan sets sights on second
The race to be crowned champion jockey on NSW's country tracks is a little more clear cut, but there is an even bigger carrot for Greg Ryan to achieve before the end of the season. Ryan is comfortably clear of Hall Of Famer Robert Thompson with less than a week to go in the season - both have ridden more than 100 winners for the term - but is believed to be about to surpass Jack Thompson as the second-most successful jockey in Australian racing history. Heading into Saturday's Gilgandra meeting, Ryan was sitting on 3317 lifetime winners - just five shy of Jack Thompson. Ryan will also ride at Quirindi (Sunday) and Warren (Monday).
Race day goes bush
Country participants have been buoyed by the news Sydney's Saturday metropolitan raceday will boast a $40,000 race restricted to bush horses from December 1 in a Racing NSW push to increase declining field sizes. Dubbed the "Highway Handicap", the races will be run at all Saturday meetings outside of carnival time and feature a variety of distances between 1000 and 1800 metres. They will be programmed at a class 2 or 3 level with a mix of handicap and Plate races.
TAB meetings
Sunday - Coffs Harbour, Quirindi. Monday - Moruya, Warren. Tuesday - Wagga. Friday - Canberra, Tamworth. Saturday - Kempsey.
