PARKES trainer George Wright has made a habit of training winners at non-TAB and picnic meetings in the region and he continued that yesterday when Clifford won the opening event at Warren's twilight meeting.
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Each year the club hosts a late afternoon meeting in the lead-up to the festive season, which almost acts as a town Christmas Party and a big crowd was starting to roll into the track when the first race on the six-event non-TAB card was run.
Wright saddled up two runners in the event - Clifford and Steel Wings - with Clifford being the more fancied of the two at $8.50.
He entered the race on the back of a last-start second placing at the Cowra Picnics and prior to that had been well beaten in a race at Broken Hill.
The big home-town support came for the Merv Rumble-trained She's Nice, which was making her race debut after running well in a barrier trial behind Zarhron at Cowra recently.
Rumble's stable has also been in a purple patch of form lately and punters responded, backing the filly into a starting price of $2.60.
From gate one, Anthony Cavallo elected to go forward on She's Nice and the three-year-old assumed the lead in the early stages.
Clifford (Ken Dunbar) also jumped well and went forward to take up a position outside the leader.
As the field rounded the turn it was apparent the leading pair were going to be hard to run down however it came as somewhat of a shock when Clifford drew up alongside his more fancied rival and hit the front in the dying stages to beat She's Nice by a head.
Rensberg Flyer ($8.00), now in the care of Nyngan trainer Rodney Robb after starting her career in Victoria with Heath Conners, ran on well to finish third - a further one-and-a-half lengths away - under the urgings of apprentice Eleanor Webster-Hawes.
Yesterday's win was Clifford's first and came at his 11th start in a race.
Meanwhile, the Sharon Jeffries-trained Hell And Ready scored her second straight win when she took out the second race on the program.
With Tiffany Jeffries in the saddle, the I Am Invincible x Mariana Sunset filly had too much class for her rivals as she beat the Clint Lundholm-trained Burbie (Kody Nestor) and Cool Sports (Sue Bigg), which is prepared at Gunnedah by Gavin Groth.
