Sean Cunningham, Narrandera Argus

A crowd of about 1000 helped make the annual Lockhart Picnic Race Club meeting a day to remember last Friday.

The club’s Vice President Will Lane said he received good feedback from those in attendance.

The Fashions on the Field once again proved popular and added a splash of colour, and a good turnout of trainers with their entries helped make it a successful day of on-track racing action.

Tumbarumba trainer Mont Waters combined with his daughter Emily to win this year’s running of the Lockhart Verandah Town Cup.

They won the feature race run over 1400 metres with Namarari ($4.60).

Jockey Emily had been sidelined from racing for almost one year after undergoing shoulder reconstruction surgery.

The meeting on Friday was Emily’s first week back racing and she did it in style, taking everything in her stride.

The feature race offered a total of $10,000 in prize money.

Carrying 62 kilograms, Namarari started as the joint second favourite.

Emily steered the eight-year-old gelding to victory ahead of runner-up, the Dan McCarthy-trained Fabulous Choice and Mister Fairbanks, trained by Grant White, in third place.

Out of sire Wandjina and dam African Rain, Namarari won by about three-quarters of a length.

The meeting featured a winning double for jockeys Emily Waters and Izzy Neale, also two wins apiece for trainers Doug Gorrel and Grant White.

The day of racing started with the Grant White-trained Simmontavi ($8), ridden by Izzy Neale, saluting the judge in the first race on the card.

Jockey Shaun Cooper guided trainer Tyson Barton’s Kahangunu ($3.80) to win the second race.

Grant White notched his training double when jockey Rob Kirkpatrick won the third race with Calypso Rich ($3.50).

In the fourth race, Doug Gorrel got his first winner of the day with the $2.80 favourite Ilzoomya, giving Izzy Neale her second winner at the meeting.

As well as grabbing the glory of winning the feature race, Emily Waters also recorded another first on the day, in the final race, the Simon Lane Electrical and AJ Gallagher Class B Handicap over 1400m.

Riding five-year-old gelding Red Hill for Wagga trainer Michael Travers, Emily secured her first ever dead-heat finish in a race when the judge could not split her mount and Wagga trainer Doug Gorrel’s $1.80 favourite, the aptly-named Photo Man.

Jockey Leandro Riberio and Photo Man’s dead-heat finish gave Doug Gorrell his second winner of the meeting in this final race to wrap up the event.  

This article appeared in the  Narrandera Argus, 10 October 2024.