NEWCASTLE is leading Hawkesbury trainer Brad Widdup’s most successful track.
And he is hoping that rings true when he attempts to win his maiden feature success there at Friday’s Gold Cup meeting at Broadmeadow.
Group 1 winning trainer Widdup will start a new campaign with his talented mare and Epsom Handicap entrant Ausbred Flirt in the $250,000 Group 3 Tibbie Stakes (1400m).
“Ausbred Flirt will be Brad’s only runner in any of the three feature races,” stable spokesman Rosie Jilla said on Sunday.
“He has booked Tyler Schiller to ride her in the Tibbie.”
Schiller put his first feature success at Newcastle on the board last year when he won the Group 3 Cameron Handicap (1500m) on Democracy Manifest.
Fifty-three of Widdup’s 372 career wins have been at Newcastle, with 50 at Kembla Grange and 47 at his home track.
Ausbred Flirt hasn’t raced since an excellent sixth to The Everest contender Bella Nipotina in the Group 1 Tatts’ Tiara (1400m) at Eagle Farm on June 29.
The six-year-old mare has won twice first-up, including a debut victory against her own sex in a Newcastle Maiden (1200m) on August 7, 2021.
Ausbred Flirt also beat city rivals when resuming in a Benchmark 78 Handicap (1400m) at Royal Randwick on September 16 last year; the first time Schiller had ridden her in a race.
He also had the mounts when she ran second in the Group 2 Dane Ripper Stakes (1300m) at Eagle Farm on June 15, and Tatt’s Tiara a fortnight later.
Schiller has also been aboard in Ausbred Flirt’s two recent trials in preparation for her resumption.
She closed off nicely when sixth to Saturday’s first-up Rosehill Gardens Group 2 Run To The Rose winner Traffic Warden in a 1000m heat at home on August 26, and then ran third in a 1050m heat at Randwick on September 9.
Widdup’s blazing start to the season continued at Kembla Grange on Saturday when Tenbury Wells ($2.15) trounced $2.10 favorite Lugarno in a Maiden Plate (1600m) to give him his 15th winner.
Given a perfect run in transit by Alysha Collett, Tenbury Wells burst away over the closing stages to score by two and a quarter lengths at his seventh start.
“Tenbury Wells was very colty early on, but has been a real gentleman this preparation and it’s all coming together for him,” Ms Jilla said.
“His owners have been patient, so it was pleasing to see him winner in the manner he did and he is racing as though he is going to get further in distance.”
Widdup purchased Tenbury Wells for $250,000 at the 2023 Magic Millions yearling sale for John Cordina’s Summertime Thoroughbreds and Steve Lester’s Daleigh Park Livestock.
The Fastnet Rock three-year-old is out of the four-times New Zealand winning Savabeel mare Dowager Queen, who was placed in both the Group 1 Flight Stakes (1600m) at Randwick and Group 1 VRC Oaks (2500m) at Flemington in 2011, along with the Group 2 Wakeful Stakes (2000m) at the latter track five days before the Oaks.
Story John Curtis, September 16, 2024 - Pics Bradley Photos
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