BILL Hayes, who has stables at Eugowra and trains his team at Forbes racecourse, supplied the winning quinella in the final race at the famous Bong Bong Picnics in the Southern Highlands on Friday.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Dominico and Schoona, both outsiders, were the Hayes runners in the Your Event Solutions Class B Handicap (1200m).
Schoona settled behind the leaders with Dominico following the stablemate.
With Roy L McCabe in the saddle Schoona ($11.00) took the lead turning for home but Dominica (Michael Gray, $17.00) finished very strongly to beat Schoona by more than three lengths with Dane Cheval (Tim Phillips, $3.10) favourite) a neck away in third.
The win on Dominico was a career-first for Wyong-based Gray.
Former professional jockey Billy Owen rode a great race to win the Bong Bong Picnic Cup (1560m) on the Robert Price, Nowra-trained Tradtri.
Attitude Pays and Aqaba set the pace with Tradtri tracking the leaders. Owen eased Tradtri ($7.50) to the outside 700m out and raced to the lead with 250m to travel.
Tradtri was a convincing winner by over two lengths from Damysus (Aaron Sweeney, $41.00) and Frankenbeans (Alan Barton, $15.00).When apprenticed to Nick Olive at Canberra, Owen rode 38 winners before rising weight forced him out of the professional ranks.
Again riding in tremendous form this season, Tim Phillips won the first four races of the day at Bong Bong.Three of his winners, Monte Lago (2.80 fav.), Our Penny Girl ($16.00) and De Licious Bobbie ($3.40) are trained at Kembla Bay by Donna Grisedale while his other winner was Al Farafir ($4.20), trained by Sam Kavanagh in Sydney.
o o o
It was ironic that Walgett in severe drought for several years had the annual race meeting in June washed out.
Walgett continues in drought and there was further irony when the meeting in June was to Saturday but was this time called off due to the forecast of extreme weather.
Upcoming racing includes a meeting at Cowra this Saturday, followed by the Mudgee Cup on Friday, December 5 and Dubbo on Monday, December 8.
