WINNING a race at your home track on Cup day is always an extra delight and that was evident for Quirindi trainer Geoff O’Brien at Fridays’s Akubra Quirindi Cup meeting when Chuck’n’paul saluted.
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The four-year-old gelding son of Casino Prince won the $30,000 Hello World Travel Tamworth Benchmark Showcase Handicap (1450m) by a length and a quarter from Michelle Fleming’s St Luke. Melissa Dennett’s Ratler was a half length away third.
“The ride won the race,” O’Brien said of jockey Greg Ryan’s performance.
Ryan said it was a good win.
“We sat three deep but we had a bit of cover,” he said.
“Didn’t have the easiest of runs but being on his home track helped.”
O’Brien had thought about running his gelding over the 1600m “but Greg already had a ride in that”.
“He’d ridden him at Tamworth (third) and I wanted to ride him again,” he continued.
“I had wanted to step up to the mile but another 1450 wouldn’t hurt him.”
He said Chuck’n’paul had been working well and he hopes he might keep improving.
“If he’s a 100 per cent honest he might make a fair horse,” he said with a little reservation in thought and word.
