With Kody Nestor in the saddle, the five-year-old gelding had a short-head to spare from Bye Bye Bruce on the line, paying $5.60 on the NSW tote after starting $4.20 on course.

Grand Nearctic was the first horse Fahey purchased when he went about securing his trainer’s licence and no doubt yesterday’s win, which came at the horse’s sixth career start, gave the former greyhound trainer and rugby league star a huge thrill.

As for Nestor, he will make the trip to Sydney today to ride Juerga at Rosehill.

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Form sprinter Gumnuts should start favourite for tomorrow’s $12,000 XXXX Gold Open Handicap (1200m) at Mudgee.

Trained by Ken Parsons at Cowra, Gumnuts has been in a rich vein of form in recent times and at its last start accounted for Mark Jones’ smart performer Music Academy at Wellington.

Only five opponents will line up opposite Gumnuts tomorrow including smart mare Fuji Girl and Scone-trained gelding Spock.

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Champion Dubbo rider Greg Ryan will ride Spock and will also team up with another Michael Parkinson-trained runner tomorrow at Mudgee.

Call Me Chrissie will line up in the Go Racing Mudgee Maiden Plate (1400m) after finishing a narrow second at Gunnedah last start.

On that occasion, the filly copped a bump in the home straight before steaming home to run second and she really should have taken the prize.

Tomorrow’s event doesn’t appear overly strong and she can be expected to perform well again.

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The cream of the region’s two-year-olds will line up at Dubbo this coming Friday for the pretigious $14,000 Silver Goblet (1100m).

The talk is Dubbo trainers Peter Nestor and Tom Mulholland each have a couple of runners being aimed at the race, which will be the feature event of the day.

Also next Friday, the time-honoured Cowra picnic races will be held, with a large crowd once again expected to flock to the town for the meeting.