Travelling jockey Aaron Bullock could have double the reason to celebrate in the coming weeks.
Bullock leads the state’s jockeys title but only kicked home his first city winner for the season when steering Attractable at Rosehill on Saturday.
That’s pretty impressive considering his overall tally now sits at 171 winners.
Aaron Bullock wins on Attractable at Rosehill. Credit: Getty
The goal is to reel in Queensland’s James Orman for the national title. Orman was six wins clear as of Saturday.
Bullock’s “have-saddle-will-travel” mantra means plenty of time on the road, and it has cost him his share of demerit points.
“I’m on good behaviour at the moment, and it finishes next month,” Bullock said.
“There were a few fines going 10km/h and 15km/h over. I’ll get all my points then. And I’ve got a good car now with cruise control.”
Based in Newcastle, Bullock has done well for himself considering he can’t ride much lighter than 58kg, which restricts his ability to pick up rides. He stripped two kilos early on Saturday to ride Attractable at 57.5kg, and two-and-a-half kilos a day earlier to fulfil his commitments at Scone.
Mudgee, Muswellbrook and Wyong await Bullock the next three days.
Attractable’s young trainer, Sara Ryan, has now prepared three city winners from the past four Saturdays in town.
Think about spring
Gun trainer Joe Pride’s Stradbroke winner Think About It, which is a winner of nine of his 10 career starts, continues to enjoy his break before returning for a potentially bumper spring.
“He’s more than halfway through a five-week break,” Pride said. “We’ll bring him back and run him in the Premier Stakes and then The Everest, because we’ve got the slot.”
“We haven’t decided anything after that. There’s a good chance he ends up here [Rosehill] for the 1300m race after that, which is the Giga Kick Stakes. We won’t get the chance to see him over more ground this spring, but we certainly will here next autumn.
“Private Eye has been back in work a couple of weeks. He’ll go The Shorts, Premiere Stakes and then The Everest. If he’s going well, he will get in.”
Private Eye was beaten a whisker by Giga Kick in last year’s rich Randwick spring feature.
Meanwhile, punters should not give up on Pride’s Global Empire, which was run down after being well backed in the opener at Kembla.
Mogo just magical
Top bush speedster Mogo Magic made it four wins on the bounce on Saturday at Rosehill and continued his march towards The Kosciuszko.
The Scott Collings-trained gelding led all the way over the 1100m at the prohibitive price of $1.75. Maybe the fact that the owners passed on a $1 million-plus offer from Hong Kong is starting to look like a damn smart move.
“We will take him home and see how he is. We probably do need to try him at 1200m, but after today I don’t think that is going to be an issue,” Collings said.
“We will sit down with the owners and figure out what we think is the best way to get to the Kosciuszko with him.
“I think he still has to step up a bit, but this horse has brilliant speed.”
Found: Gus Gould pass
Phil Gould is an avid reader of The Mail and can reach out to us about getting his ATC member’s guest pass returned after it was found by the cleaners at Lidcombe Oval last weekend.
Snowdens amazed by Newmarket
Cannonball may have failed to fire a shot at Royal Ascot, but trainer Peter Snowden certainly appreciated how things are done on the other side of the globe.
Snowden, whose team prepared Touristic at Rosehill – and picked up a winning treble at Kembla – had visited England before but have continued to pick up some handy pointers and are forever blown away by the training set-up at Newmarket.
“Every track is groomed to perfection every day; there’s about seven tracks of poly and about 27 grass tracks, some that go for 2000-plus metres and are a mile wide,” Snowden said.
“There are 72 trainers and over 3000 horses. They start at 6am and are still working horses until 1.30pm.”
Snowden said the Brits love Australian racing but the quarantine was seen as tough, especially for the Cup runners heading to Melbourne.
“They all know about The Everest and our big-money races. They’re keen to come, but the quarantine can be difficult,” Snowden said.
Bookies crying
It sure was a case of Dry July for the bookies as six favourites saluted at Rosehill, including Chorlton Lane, the Ciaron Maher and David Eustace import that took out the opener and is sure to measure up in some nice races in the coming months. The stable clinched an early double when Semana led all the way.
