Jake Barrett was a proud apprentice jock-ey when he hoisted the impressive WesTrac Cobar Cup above his head after winning the Cobar Miners Race Club feature race on Saturday. Aboard the Connie Greig, Dubbo-trained Valadyium, this was the first Cup won by Barrett, who is on loan to Dubbo trainer Brett Robb from the Kim Waugh stable at Wyong.
Nicely positioned behind the leaders in the 1,700 metres Cup, Valadyium ($3.80 equal favourite) wore down Knee Slapper (Elissa Meredith, $3.80 equal favourite) to win by a length with Saw That Coming (Chelsea Ings, $5) running on well for third.
The trip out west by Greig and Barrett was very worthwhile as they also won the Brough-ton Field Services Class 1 Handicap with Eve-ryone.
Under a serious challenge in the straight, Everyone ($5) kicked away to beat the $2.50 favourite Drunkasamonkey (Clayton Gal-lagher) by over two lengths with Gunnerside (Ashleigh Stanley, $6.50) a handy third.
Another apprentice riding well, Gilgandra-based Zara Lewis, won the opening event on Koko Connection for Menindee trainer Wayne Marsden.
A former Victorian galloper, Koko Connec-tion ($5) led most of the way to win the 1,000 metres Nutrien Russell Maiden Plate in con-vincing fashion from Pippie Star (Chelsea Ings, $15) and Dare To Fight (Meredith, $3.80 fav.).
The rest of the meeting belonged to leading jockey Clayton Gallagher who, with powerful riding, booted home a winning treble, starting with his easiest assignment, No Debt for Dub-bo trainer Brett Robb in the 1,000 metres DJW & Yanda Art Benchmark 58 Handicap.
From the outside barrier, No Debt ($2.20 fav.) raced wide to the home turn then acceler-ated to a four lengths win over Travstar (Meredith, $5) and Japingka (James Rogers, $9).
Carrying the 60kg top weight in the 1,200 metres Sullivan’s Mining & Industrial Bench-mark 50 Handicap, Sipharderson (Gallagher, $2.80 fav.) shared the lead then held off the challenge from Late Return (Lewis, $9) to win by a long neck.
After taking on Sipharderson for the lead the Wayne Prisk, Cobar-trained Jawsome (Angela Cooper, $10) battled on for a game third.
Bred and raced by Heather and David Ring-land from Dubbo, Sipharderson completed a winning Cobar double for trainer Brett Robb.
The final race, the 1,370 metres KML Indus-tries Benchmark 45 Handicap, was a thrilling race with the Bryan Dixon, Gilgandra-trained Lenny’s Lad ($4.20) leading for home and under desperate riding from Gallagher prevail-ing in a three way photo finish from Hoffy’s Dream (Ings, $8) and Fiery Belle (Barrett, $4.40).—Colin Hodges
