A good crowd was on hand to witness Parkes jockey Tiffany Jeffries win the $10,000 WesTrac Cobar Cup (1700 metres) on the Russell Green-trained Victorian Crown in the feature event at the Cobar Miners Race Club autumn meeting on Saturday.
It was the third Cobar Cup win for Jeffries after having previously won with War Horse for Green (who trains at Wangaratta in Victoria) and with Grimm from the Craig Tyack stable at Tullibigeal.
Victorian Crown has been racing in great form and before Cobar had won successive Picnic Cups in Victoria at Swifts Creek, Healesville and Cranbourne before an unplaced run in the Deniliquin Cup.
Carrying the 61.5kg top weight at Cobar, Victorian Crown shook off Nipper’s Destiny near the home turn then after a length of the straight stride for stride battle with the runner-up defeated Bathurstian (Jamie Gibbons) by a neck with eight lengths to third placed Queen Majesty (Daniel Pitomac).
First leg of a winning double for Jeffries was the Michael Plummer, Mr De Niro which overhauled the Wayne Prisk, Cobar-trained Vonnida (Kath Bell-Pitomac) close to home with Bulbadah (Kaylee Kirkwood) third, in the Yanda Art-Lou Simon Memorial Benchmark 63 Handicap,1000 metres.
Bathurst based apprentice Jamie Gibbons rode his career first winning double, Northern Myth, in the KML Industries – Buckman Family Memorial Benchmark 50 Handicap and also on board Stravali in the Landmark Russell-Vinty Delaney Memorial Class 11 Handicap.
Raced by a group from Tottenham and Trundle and trained at Nyngan by Rodney Robb, Northern Myth from near last dashed home along the rails to beat Keepcalmandcarryon (Jeffries) and Flatley’s Fortune (James Rogers).
Stravali, trained at Parkes by George Wright, swept to the lead in the straight for a convincing win from See Bling (Rogers) and Artful Song (Rasit Yetimova).
Back to form, the Rodney Robb trained favourite Lucienne (Kirkwood) led throughout for a nine lengths win over Bold Suggestion (Eleanor Webster-Hawes) and Al Artois (Yetimova) in the Sullivan’s & Mining Hardware Dr Allan Brady Memorial Class 2 Handicap.
Leading for home, the Wayne Marsden, Menindee trained Raine Joy (Yetimova, $13) kept going to win the Broughton Field Services & PJL George Booth Memorial Maiden Plate by over two lengths from Little Leena (Jeffries) and Blue Channel (Kirkwood).
