Outsider Logan Street Lion’s thrilling win at Rockhampton Cup at Callaghan Park
A “local” feature Cup win is always popular and celebrated where-ever it may occur and that was certainly the case at Rockhampton’s Callaghan Park racecourse at the weekend.
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A “local” feature Cup win is always popular and celebrated where-ever it may occur and that was certainly the case at Rockhampton’s Callaghan Park racecourse on Saturday, July 5.
Parochial local race-goers demonstrated that when outsider Logan Street Lion (NZ) (Raul Silvera Olivera, $19) scored a thrilling victory in the $150K TAB Rockhampton Cup (1600m).
It was Callaghan Park trainer Ricky Vale’s second Rocky Cup win having won the race five years previously with Absolut Artie.
Former Uruguayan jockey Silvera brought Logan Street Lion with a strong run to beat Toowoomba trainer Pat Webster’s Skyforger (Les Tilley, $16.00) by 0.48 lengths with another Darling Downs trainer John Dann’s Quothquan (Sean Cormach, $8.00) a close third.
Managing owner of Logan Street Lion, Pav Cheimardinov, a local businessman was on “cloud nine” as were trainer Vale and jockey Olivera.
Raul Olivera is one of Rockhampton’s most popular jockeys and the win will certainly enhance his status after migrating to the city some years ago.
Vale has a reputation as a perfectionist trainer and his astuteness at his profession has been long established.
Cup favourite, Toowoomba trainer Mark Currie’s Harbourmaster ($3) finished a disappointing 10th beaten 7.34 lengths.
Currie had been riding on a crest of a wave over the two-day Cup Carnival leading in two winners at Friday’s Newmarket meeting while preparing a winning treble on Saturday.
Those efforts won him the $20K winning trainers bonus as being the leading mentor over the Carnival.
His five winners were ridden by Brisbane’s Justin Huxtable who sustained a back injury after winning on Currie’s Kateel in the race prior to the Cup.
This resulted in the Cup being put back 39 minutes as another ambulance was required to come on course while paramedics treated Huxtable before transporting him to hospital.
At Friday’s Newmarket meeting the $100K One Syndications Newmarket (1300m) was taken out by Beaudesert trained Sha of Gomer (Rikki Jamieson, $3.90).
Racing returns to Callaghan Park on Friday, July, 18 while the Northern Racing Carnival continues this Friday at Mackay where the feature is it’s $75K Newmarket (1300m).