Tamworth race a big eight-race TAB program on Monday, with Scone following with an eight-race TAB meeting on Friday.
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Nominations for Scone close at 11am on Monday while Tamworth has 104 acceptors for Monday, said TJC acting general manager Kay Jeffrey.
She said it continued the increase in numbers for all country tracks following the lift in prizemoney and the addition of races such as the Highway Handicaps in Sydney and the $30,000 per race for Showcase meetings in the country.
“The promotion of country racing by Racing NSW has been fantastic,” Jeffrey said. “We also race again on Sunday, July 30 with a Showcase meeting.
“It’s great for our club and city. Being a Sunday we should be able to get a bigger crowd.”
Tamworth trainer Mark Mason has Duble Gaze running at Tamworth. The two-year-old daughter of Dubleo has had just the one start and jumps from barrier three at Tamworth with Cavallo on board in the Carlton Mid Maiden Handicap (1000m).
Mason and fellow Tamworth trainer Melanie O’Gorman went close in Sydney on Saturday. They both had runners at Warwick Farm, where O’Gorman’s Suncraze ran from back in the field to finish second to Todd Howlett’s Nic’s Vendettas in the $60,000 TAB Highway Handicap (1200m).
It was Suncraze’s sixth successive second after winning his first race on debut at Dubbo. He then finished second at Tamworth, Scone (20), Randwick and Newcastle before Saturday’s good effort at Warwick Farm.
Hunter and North West Racing Association apprentice Mikayla Weir rode Nic’s Vendetta, who had been a strong chance in the recent Country Championships. It was going to take something special to upstage the earlier feat of James Cummings with his first runner for Godolphin winning, but Weir did that, riding a winner at her very first ride in Sydney.
The 23-year-old apprentice steered Nic’s Vendetta to victory in a tight finish from odds-on favourite Suncraze.
“I wasn’t nervous at all because I know the horse like the back of my hand,” she said. “I know him so well, so it was like clockwork. I ride him every day and I’ve ridden him for three preps now. I haven’t even ridden a provincial winner. I just haven’t been given the opportunities.”
Hot Hit was game in defeat for Mason in the $100,000 Schweppes Handicap (1100m) at Warwick Farm, finishing third to Isorich.
On Friday at Gunnedah, O’Gorman’s three-year-old filly Cut The Mustard led all the way to beat Rod Northam’s My Tagoson by two lengths in the Oaktree Retirement Villages Class 1 and Maiden Plate (1600m).