“She looked too good on paper,” was the response from Maitland reinsman Guy Chapple when he returned to scale with Last Party after taking out the Missile Bill Barraclough Memorial at Armidale on Sunday.
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“I have only had one drive here at Armidale before and that was a lot of years ago,” Chapple added.
Last Party commenced as race favourite in the tribute race to one of the club’s late stalwarts – Bill Barraclough.
“A lap to go I thought, Let’s get out of here,” said Chapple, who after racing in the one-by-one, with Limousine Livia (Lola Weidemann) leading the field, elected to make his race move as the bell sounded for the final lap.
“She is a class mare and Aaron had marked this race for her a while ago,” he said, in regards to the mare’s trainer Aaron Goadsby.
“She [Lets Party] had a couple of quite trials. We worked her last Sunday and she worked super so we thought she would be too good today.”
Last Party is trained at Singleton Heights by Aaron Goadsby who has given the four-year-old Bettors Delight mare nine starts for five wins and a placing.
The race was not without drama, with Capital Cullect (Chris Shepherdson) scratched at the start due to causing two false starts.
“She [Last Party] is pretty laid back, like the trainer and driver – everything was sweet,” Chapple joked.
Last Party, who was resuming from a spell, went on for a 33.9 metre win over Million Dollar Mac (Brad Elder), with Our Joshy Boy (Nathan Dawson) another 15 metres away in third.
“She has won five races now and the last one was a free-for-all race at Dubbo, so she has got a bit of a future,” Chapple said.
Goadsby was “relieved’ when the race was over and the mare was back to the stables.
“We had a little bit of pressure going into the race with the gig as the trophy, but she went how we felt she would go,” Goadsby said.
It may have been only the second trip to Armidale for Chapple but Goadsby he was a newcomer to racing there.
“I didn’t know where I was going,” Goadsby said. “I have never been up here myself, but it’s good to get a win.”