WHAT a weekend for the Hawkesbury training base!
Following on from Alex Lemarie’s breakthrough success with Show County at the Wyong Cup meeting last Friday, another six winners have rolled in.
Brad Widdup (Noises), Blake Ryan (Up The Front) and Edward Cummings (Cash Me) scored on their home track on Saturday, and Terry Croft (Rainagain) and Team Vigouroux (Bandolero) joined in by also winning races at Orange.
Wendy Haynes put the icing on the weekend cake by scoring with Threw at Mudgee on Sunday.
Leading Hawkesbury trainer Widdup’s 13th winner of the season came courtesy of lightly-raced three-year-old Noises (Andrew Adkins), who clinched back-to-back wins in the Class 1/Maiden Plate (1800m).
The Microphone filly started at $4.40 and easily repelled the challenge of well-backed Blazing Sword ($2.30 favorite) to score by two lengths.
“Noises is more mature now, and Brad took the blinkers off her before she resumed and ran second at Wyong early last month,” stable spokesman Rosie Jilla said.
“She has now won her next two races.
“He put them on her for her only start as a two-year-old back in March.
“We toyed with the idea of putting blinkers back on her going up to 1800m, but she didn’t need them.”
Jilla was at Royal Randwick where Noises’ stablemate Confess Our Dreams was caught only in the closing stages of the Benchmark 78 Handicap (1100m) at her first start since May 1.
“Confess Our Dreams was resuming and Spring Lee, who beat her, was having her third start this preparation,” Jilla said.
“Race fitness was definitely the difference.”
Blake Ryan bought two yearlings at the Gold Coast Magic Millions National sale last June –
and has won with both in just over a week.
Asuriito ($25,000) scored on debut at Moruya on August 30, and $45,000 buy Up The Front at his second start and first this time in work broke through at home on Saturday.
Ridden by Sam Clipperton, Up The Front ($7) defeated fellow Hawkesbury trainer Claire Lever’s Ningaloo Reef ($26) in the Provincial Maiden Plate (1000m).
Ryan entered Up The Front, a three-year-old son of Rubick, for the Inglis Ready2Race sale last October as an early two-year-old, but withdrew him.
“Friends of mine were looking to become involved in a horse, and I liked this bloke,” he explained.
“My farrier Brad Porter is a member of Quirindi Polocrosse Club and put the syndicate together with other club members.
“I was pretty confident he would run well first-up, and he did a good job to win.”
Ryan thought enough of Up The Front (a polocrosse term) to aim him at the Wellington Boot (1100m) in autumn, but he pulled up shin sore after finishing fourth in a Midway 2YO Maiden (900m) at Newcastle on April 3.
“The third placegetter Sneaky Sofia then was narrowly beaten in the Boot, so we were on the right track,” Ryan said.
Ed Cummings posted his first win of the new season when Cash Me (Jean Van Overmeire) took the Midway Benchmark 68 Handicap (1400m).
Having only his second start for his new trainer after winning three races in Queensland, Cash Me ($7) was tough in defeating Kembla Grange’s Flying Bandit ($10) and Newcastle’s Mondo ($2.80 favorite).
At Orange, Croft won the Maiden Handicap (1300m) with $2.05 favorite Rainagain (Clayton Gallagher), and Phil and Tara Vigouroux took the Benchmark 58 Handicap (1600m) with $7.50 chance Bandolero, ridden by Ken Dunbar.
As with Cummings, the Orange winners were the first of the season for Croft and Team Vigouroux, and similarly Wendy Haynes also put her first win on the board in 2024-25 with Threw (apprentice Olivia Chambers), successful as a $5 favorite in an open Benchmark 58 Handicap (2000m).
Story John Curtis, September 8, 2021
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