ANDREW Dale Racing’s nine hour round trip to Grenfell paid dividends on Saturday.
The local horse racing stable made the decision to target Grenfell’s Cup meeting and it proved to be a great move coming away with victory in three of the six races.
Crimosa kicked off the day for Dale with a tight win in race two (BM58), followed by Deploy and Destroy in race three (BM58) and Dangers in race five’s benchmark 58.
Dale said he was pleased with the result.
“We had six runners for the day so to come away with three wins was great,” Dale said.
“Aside from the winners Biden finished second in a 1400 metre maiden, Wagunda was third behind Crimosa and Garros battled away in the cup which was run at breakneck pace – Garros was nearly 20 lengths off the leader at one point it was crazy.
“Richie Bensley rode all three of the winners, he’s a good quality jockey to be riding in a little meeting like that so we took advantage of that.”
Dale’s son Lachie and foreman Matt Hahne made the long trip up to Grenfell.
“They left at 7am and got back at 11pm so it was a crazy day for them,” Dale said.
“They said it was good to go and the track was a beautiful little country track but it was a long day for them.
“When you take into account Mojo Music’s win on Monday (Leeton) along with the three at Grenfell it makes the trip worth it but I’m not sure that we’d do it again.
“The boys are still recovering from the track-lag I think.”
Although the non-TAB country meeting was a long way off even the quality of some TAB country race days, Dale believes it was worth the effort for his gallopers.
“There weren’t many numbers in a couple of the benchmark 58 races so Racing NSW rang me up and asked if we’d be able to support a couple of the races,” he said.
“So we threw Crimosa in last minute because he was ready to trial so for him it was more of a fitness run but came away with a win.
“You obviously take into account that it was a non-TAB meeting with small fields but for a few of the horses that went it was they either trial or we take them up to Grenfell and race for a little bit of money.”
Dale’s Mojo Music continued the winning weekend at Leeton on Monday in race six (BM58 1050m) by the smallest of margins.
The five-year-old gelding went toe-to-toe with Leon and Troy Corstens’ Jay Peak Kitten down the straight but it was Mojo Music who got the bob on the line to break a drought which hasn’t seen him win since July 2022.
“Everything went to script with Mojo Music,” Dale said.
“We thought Mojo would lead and dictate the race which he did with Corstens’ horse sitting on the outside.
“Those two ended up going head-to-head and when I was watching it live I actually thought we got beaten but on the replay you could see that we just got the head down at the right time.
“He’s been a super horse for us, he was a $3000 buy and he’s now won over $160,000 in prizemoney.”
WORDS: Willson Mack
