TURF
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SUE GRILLS and the Tamworth Jockey Club were surprise winners when the NSW Country and Provincial Racing Awards were handed out at the Four Seasons Hotel in Sydney on Friday night.
While the Tamworth Jockey Club, which is having a $2million upgrade to its tracks, won the Country TAB Race Club of the Year, Sue Grills won her first Country Trainer of the Year.
She was one of four nominees for the trainer award and thought either Greg Bennett, Matthew Dunn or Neil Godbolt would win it.
“It was a shock,” Grills told The Leader Saturday morning.
“A pleasant surprise. I thought one of the other three male finalists would win it.”
The award capped a big season for her where she finished a win behind Paul Perry in the Hunter and North West Racing Association premiership. “It was my best season,” she said of a year where she trained 40 winners.
“Paul Perry beat me by one but I couldn’t get a winner the last month or so.”
While she had just one runner at Bundarra on Saturday (Seektowin) her next meeting is at Gunnedah this Saturday.
“It’s going to be a big day,” she said.
“Sophie (stable apprentice Sophie Young) is getting married Saturday too.
“Then we have the Coonamble Cup on Sunday and Armidale on Monday. I told Sophie she couldn’t have picked a busier weekend,” she joked. Seektowin won at Bundarra for Grills and Young, claiming the Bundarra Sport & Recreation Club Maiden Handicap (1300m).
Grills was also delighted for the Tamworth Jockey Club too.
“That was a big shock too but good for them,” she said of a club which has transferred seven of its meetings to Scone and Armidale while the major upgrading to its tracks continue.
The TJC will run its annual Melbourne Cup meeting, sponsored by Single Builders, on Tuesday, November 3 on its B Grass but hopes to resume racing on its main track when all the upgrading is finished by the end of March.