DIANNE Lumsden made her first trip to Wallabadah a memorable one when Red Hot Beauty won the first race yesterday.
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While the Broadmeadow trainer debuted with distinction her jockey, Alex Stokes, was riding her third Wallabadah Cup meeting and enjoys the challenging hillside course.
“It’s good fun,” Stokes said.
“She (Red Hot Beauty) really appreciated coming down the hill. Di’s husband has been working on a hill at their farm and she loved it.”
Red Hot Beauty speared down and around the hill to set up a two length lead and held on for a narrow long head win from Kirsty Formosa’s Sexy And I Know It with the Luke Griffith-trained Point To Point a neck away third.
Red Hot Beauty was having her fifth race start and notched her first win in the Marshall MacMahon Hotel Maiden Plate (950m).
Lumsden was a smiling trainer as she paraded her winning mare.
“I’ve rung the owners and told them they’ve got to come here next year,” Lumsden said.
“It’s fabulous, a quaint little track.”
Her mare is something of a handful too on race days but benefitted from some hill work at the family farm, Lumsden said.
“This little mare’s sister goes around at Newcastle tomorrow and another sister is on Thursday,” she added.
The became even better fun for Alex Stokes when she produced the ride of the day to win the 161st Glenartney Truck Repairs Wallabadah Cup aboard Husisname.
While heistmaster, Tough Habit and The Aviator all charged down and around the hill she sat back in behind on her Branxton gelding and pounced rounding for home.
It was a perfect ride, Noel Boland mused as he waited for the Cup
presentation.
“She bookended the Cup meeting,” he said of Stokes’ first and last race heroics.
“She couldn’t believe the finish our bloke has. But it was no surprise to us. He’s a good horse if he’s got the right conditions.”
The harder and tougher the better for him.
A Quirindi Cup might now be on the agenda for the seven-year-old son of Hussonet who won his fifth race
yesterday.
But they will have to come after a shoulder operation for Noel.
And that means, the power behind the throne, Noel’s wife Margaret, who also owns Husisname, might have a bit of extra work next month.
