Ex-Victorian jockey Georgina Cartwright set to continue North Queensland domination in Cairns Amateurs
Georgina Cartwright will almost be a certified Queenslander if she can pull off the Cairns Cup-Cairns Amateurs Cup double on former English galloper Mahagoni on Saturday.
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Mahagoni is the English horse, trained out of Brisbane, ridden by a Victorian looking to win North Queensland’s feature race.
Formerly trained by Sir Mark Prescott in England, Mahagoni could become the king of the north if he is to do the Cairns Cup-Cairns Amateurs double on Saturday.
The warm surroundings of Cannon Park couldn’t be further away than the famous training hills of Newmarket, but the globetrotter is making it his second home.
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Now trained by Lindsay Gough in Brisbane, the northern cups circuit has been a long-range plan for owner Bill Mumford, who paid $72,000 for the horse online earlier this year.
His triumph in the Cairns Cup last month netted him $87,000 alone and they will look to double that in the Cairns Amateurs on Saturday.
It’s MAHAGONI in the Cairns Cup! ðŸ†
— RaceQ (@RaceQLD) August 24, 2024
The six-year-old presents with a huge run down the outside to score in the $150,000 feature at @CNSJockeyClub!
Congratulations to trainer Lindsay Gough and hoop @GCartwright93 👠#QLDisRacingpic.twitter.com/ol7nW4o9kr
Former Victorian Georgina Cartwright almost considers herself a Queenslander now, and said adding the Cairns Amateurs to her CV on the back of her Cairns Cup masterclass would take her a step closer.
“It was this time four years ago that I moved up to Queensland in the middle of Covid, so I had to do hotel quarantine,” Cartwright said.
“It has gone quickly, I don’t think I could move back to Victoria now, it is too cold and the lifestyle in Brisbane is so much better.
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“You can’t go wrong with Cairns, it is a nice part of the world.
“I haven’t ridden there a lot, I’m certainly no regular up there, but I went there for the Amateurs last year.”
Cartwright has become somewhat of a big-race specialist in the north, teaming up with Gough last year with Constant Flight to win the Cairns Amateur Sprint (1400m) for the same connections of Mahagoni.
She said it is fitting to win for Gough, who is one of her biggest supporters.
“Lindsay is from up that way and the owners target the races up there every year, so they are keen to win because they like to stay up there for a few weeks,” she said.
“Lindsay is such a good supporter of mine, it was great to win the Cairns Cup for him and I went up and won the sprint for the same owners last year.”
While she is giving up rides at Eagle Farm on Saturday, Cartwright says the two-day carnival in the north is more than worth her while.
After jumping a justified favourite in the Cairns Cup, Mahagoni will again be the horse to beat, where he meets a similar field to the one he demolished last month.
“It helped getting to the right part of the track, the inside was heavy with not much grass cover, so out wide was the best ground, which we got to,” Cartwright said.
“I’d imagine he will be pretty hard to beat on Saturday again because he is so straight forward, you just put him in the race.”
Originally published as Ex-Victorian jockey Georgina Cartwright set to continue North Queensland domination in Cairns Amateurs
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