PATRICK Payne dominated the July 19th meeting at Pakenham, training the winners of three of the five jumps races, including both features.
Having won the maiden hurdle with Eckhart and apprentice jockey Thomas Sadler, Payne had the odds-on favourite Tallyho Twinkletoe in the AAU$90,000 Brendan Drechsler Hurdle over 3,500 metres with Steven Pateman up.
Tallyho Twinkletoe was having just his third start in Australia. Home is New Zealand where the St Reims gelding is trained by Kevin Myers and was sent to Payne last year before completing the Grand National Hurdle and Steeple double, the first to do so since Mosstrooper in 1930.
“He’s the complete package,” said Patrick Payne. “I loved a horse called Sea King (dual National winner over hurdles (2014) and steeples (2018)). He was a good jumper and had stamina but this horse has a little bit more dash in him.”
Carting 72kg as a AU$1.60 favourite, Tallyho Twinkletoe prevailed by nose over Bee Tee Junior. “He’s an unbelievable horse, he’s got an unbelievable engine and just keeps coming and coming,” said Payne. He was going from 2,400 metres to 3,500 metres on a very testing track like Pakenham. The last 100 metres his fitness told so let’s hope he derives a lot of benefit from that and keeps going forward.”
Tallyho Twinkletoe returns to the track on Sunday for the Grand National Hurdle at Sandown.
Completing the treble for Payne was Shane Jackson aboard Slowpoke Rodriguez who took out the AU$90,000 Mosstrooper Steeple over 3,500 metres. Chiming in three-wide on the final bend, the rising 10-year-old led over the final two jumps to win by a length from his stablemate Killarney Kid.
CHAMPION West Australian jockey William Pike has broken the record for most wins in an Australian season, breaking his own mark when he rode the Grant and Alana Williams-trained Inspirational Girl to win the Amelia Park Handicap at Ascot on Saturday lifting his total to 235.
Pike is 95 winners clear of his nearest rival, the New South Wales based jockey Blaike McDougall. As well, he leads the Perth Jockeys’ Premiership with 138 winners, 78 clear of his nearest rival.
Sunlight dazzles for AU$4.2 million
SUNLIGHT, the Tony and Calvin McEvoy-trained four-year-old daughter of Zoustar broke the Australian record for a mare off the racetrack selling to Coolmore for AU$4.2 million at the Magic Millions National Sale on Tuesday.
“She is a filly of a generation and we are very lucky to have got her. There were a lot of good people involved in her and there were a lot of people around the world who had their eyes on her, so to take her back to Coolmore in the Hunter Valley is exciting and she will visit Justify,” said Tom Magnier after the sale which opened at a bid of AU$1 million.
A winner of AU$6.75 million from 11 wins and 25 starts, Sunlight won the Coolmore Stud Stakes, before completing a trio of Group 1 wins in the William Reid Stakes and Newmarket Handicap, both in open company.
Coolmore stayed in the ring securing two more mares for Justify, going to AU$2 million for the dual-Group 2 winning Not A Single Doubt mare Champagne Cuddles, and AU$1.3 million for the Group 1-winning I Am Invincible mare Invincibella.
The second highest lot of day one was the Australian Oaks winner Unforgotten, a daughter of Fastnet Rock out of the Irish-bred mare Memories Of You who sold to Yulong Investments, bidding online, for AU$2.7 million. With two of the three catalogued days for the Book 1 broodmares completed the average stood at AU$149,144 for 264 sold and 101 passed in. The gross was AU$39,374,000 with a median of AU$60,000.
Adkins sustains multiple injuries in horror fall
FORMER Sydney champion apprentice Andrew Adkins suffered a nasty fall in the opening race for juveniles at Warwick Farm on Saturday that will see him sidelined for six months, according to Racing New South Wales’ Dr David Duckworth.
Riding the two-year-old Snitzel colt Hot N’ Hazy, Adkins found himself shunted off his line by the race favourite Smart Image, ridden by Hugh Bowman.
Nearing the 200-metre mark Bowman had been on the back of the leader Mr Colourful, who was three off the fence. Taking what he thought was a gap to the outside, Smart Image shouldered Hot N’ Hazy out causing that horse to lose his balance and collect with Sunborn, ridden by Louise Day, before hitting the deck and throwing Adkins under the hoofs of Sunborn and Lady Banff.
Medics were quick to the scene, stabilising Adkins before the 22-year-old was transported to hospital. The rider remained conscious throughout.
A “remorseful” Hugh Bowman has been suspended for six weeks after the stewards’enquiry.
Fairfax Media reported on Thursday that Bowman was suspended after Racing NSW stewards made the ‘very, very difficult’ decision to impose the ban for his role in the fall.
Bowman pleaded not guilty to a charge of careless riding and he provided stewards with 19 still photos as he gave an explanation for his riding.
Bowman said he had spoken to Adkins and told him how “sorry I was for the accident”, which has left the luckless jockey nursing a collapsed lung, seven broken ribs, a broken collarbone and two fractured bones in his leg.
Bowman expressed his regret for the fall but claimed “circumstances out of his control” contributed to the accident.
Hot N’ Hazy had to be euthanised.
ROBBIE Dolan has landed his second consecutive Sydney apprentice jockeys’ premiership. Heading into the final days of the season, Dolan had 31 winners ‘in town’, nearly double that of the next best apprentice, Jean Van Overmeire.
Way out in front as champion Sydney jockey is former Godolphin rider James McDonald with 103.
Tom Sherry has also made his mark, with 94 winners; he has the New South Wales champion apprentice title wrapped up and also leads overall on the provincial circuit with 55 wins.
The sustained success over a number of years of international jockeys – apprentices Rachel King (English) and Robbie Dolan have won the past three Sydney apprentices’ titles – has prompted the New South Wales Jockeys Association to meet with Racing NSW in an effort to restrict the flow of international riders.
“With 200 jockeys and apprentices currently licensed, there is no shortage of riders,” reads the NSWJA report which proposes setting a criteria for jockeys to gain short-term licences to ride in New South Wales. “The association has no issue with international riders coming to NSW for major races and carnivals, but recommends criteria be introduced for other times as is the case in many other racing countries.”
The criteria proposed, that riders have won a Group 1 or two Group 2s or three Group 3s in the past 12 months, would have excluded Tom Marquand whose wins scooped more than AU$4.4 million earlier in the year.
WITH a single shipment of horses slated to arrive from Europe in early October, Tom Magnier was keen to reiterate Coolmore’s desire to pursue the Melbourne Spring Carnival.
“I was talking to Aidan and we’re mad keen to get the horses down here for the Spring Carnival. We’ve never won a Melbourne Cup so we’re very keen to get one of those,” relayed Magnier by Melbourne radio. “We have a very good team at Ballydoyle and Coolmore and we’d love to bring all the staff out, but logistically, we’re not sure what is going on at the moment and we’re in talks with the various bodies. If we can get the people and the horses and the jockeys out here, then we will but it’s an unknown at this stage.”
While names weren’t put forward, it is believed Magic Wand, Sir Dragonet and Nobel Prize are in the frame.