IT WAS a tale of two Cup girls at Inverell and Wallabadah yesterday.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
In Wallabadah 25-year-old Alex Stokes won the 161st $8500 Glenartney Truck Repairs Wallabadah Cup aboard Branxton-trained Husisname.
Up in Inverell 19-year-old Courtney van der Werf won her first $30,000 Fencing North West Sky Gold Inverell Cup aboard Armidale-trained Tully Bolero.
Stokes had won the first race at Wallabadah to give her a bookend double. Van der Werf went one better, landing a treble after winning the first race of the Cup day, the John Cunningham Memorial Maiden (1010m) with the Kevin Dixon-trained Make Me Some. She then annexed the RL Moses Memorial Class 1 Handicap (1400m) with the Anthony Honess-trained Hello I Love You.
She capped it off by swooping on the Inverell Cup with long shot Tully Bolero, trained by Frank Tanner at Armidale.
Tamworth, Casino and Maclean Cup winner Universal Belief (Jim Delaney) was favoured to add the Inverell Cup to his list, and when the gelding shot to the lead in the straight it looked like the bookies were going to take a hit.
But apprentice jockey van der Werf already had two wins for the day and had Tully Bolero right where she wanted her.
She steered the five-year-old mare down the outside of the track and ran down Universal Belief in the last 100m to complete her treble.
Van der Werf wasn’t even supposed to ride Tully Bolero, but picked up the ride when Jemma Wilson pulled out through illness.
“I’m disappointed my apprentice didn’t get to ride it,” Tanner said.
“But she’s very ill.
“She got car sick on the way to Toowoomba last week and hasn’t recovered, so it must be more than just the car sickness.
“But Courtney rode her an absolute gem.”
Meanwhile, Alex Stokes didn’t think Husisname could reel in the three leaders – Heistmaster, Tough Habit and The Aviator – as they careered around and down the Wallabadah hill in the Wallabadah Cup.
“I didn’t think I could catch them,” she said.
“But once he got into the straight he just took off.”
She rates that better than winning a Muswellbrook Cup.
“I like coming here, it’s a great day out,” she said.
Noel Boland, trainer of Husisname, also likes Wallabadah and has been attending for a number of years.
Better still, his seven-year-old gelding, Husisname likes it too.
“He likes hard tracks like this,” Boland said.
“He’s a good horse on hard tracks. He might be a pony but he can give them a start and give them a belting.
“He’s won two Louth Cups, the only horse in history to do that over the 2000m out there.”