Clint Lundholm may have got the overall bragging rights at Dubbo Turf Club on Monday but Brett Cavanough was delighted when Stomp gave him a chance to stick it to the locals.
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Lundholm won three of the first five races on Monday but it was Scone-based Cavanough and Stomp which took out the Kennards Mine Lightning Maiden Handicap (1420m).
“I like coming to Dubbo, it’s a good scene, and I like sticking it to Clint Lundholm and it’s better Kody (Nestor) is here now too, there’s two I can drive it into,” he smiled.
While Stomp was a $3.80 favourite there was plenty of interest around cult hero Four Beers Please, the horse bought by bookmaker Sportsbet to race for nearly 12,000 of its customers, as he was being ridden by former Melbourne Cup winner Corey Brown.
While the gelding dubbed “the punter’s racehorse” produced the best run of his career and ultimately finished third, Stomp was never truly tested.
Stomp jumped from barrier seven and with Ashley Morgan, who has won races in England and Wales in the past, in the saddle she quickly moved around the outside and took the lead.
The highly-regarded Brown followed suit with Four Beers Please ($41) and he sat behind Stomp into the turn for home.
But Brown, whose most recent Melbourne Cup win came last year with Rekindling, couldn’t get Four Beers Please to find another gear and Stomp started to move well clear.
The four-year-old mare won by two-and-three-quarter lengths with Silk Topper ($10) running home well to finish second ahead of the Barbara Joseph and Paul and Matt Jones-trained Four Beers Please.
“She’s handled the track better than the others and that probably made it look a bit better than it was but she had a bit of Melbourne form and delivered that today with the blinkers on,” Cavanough said.
“She probably should have won at Coonamble but wandered around a bit when she got to the front and today she was never going to get better.”
Cavanough also praised the ride of Morgan, who has shown plenty of promise since arriving on Australian shores earlier this year.
“He’s adapting to the Aussie style okay, it’s a different tempo but he’s going good and he works hard,” he said.
“He rides work in the morning so he deserves the rewards.”
Stomp’s victory was followed by a pair of Lundholm winners in the form of Hammoon Bridge ($5) and Joey’s Destiny ($3.30), making it an early treble for the Dubbo trainer after Skullharderson ($9) won the day’s first event.
It was a welcome return to form for Lundholm, who has recently battled a virus which ripped through his stables.
It sidelined all of his horses but the Dubbo trainer is back firing and targeting more success at next month’s Gold Cup meeting.