Author: Ben Triandafillou

HORSE RACING CLIFF Brown’s promising three-year-old Yaphet has started to deliver on the stable’s high hopes with a narrow but decisive win at Sale on Friday 15 April. Mornington-based trainer Cliff Brown has always thought the gelded son of Blackfriars would make a “nice horse” and his victory on Friday over another highly-spruiked galloper So You See re-assured that belief. The pair were neck-and-neck all the way down the straight but it was Yaphet who managed to get his nose down at the post to win the $100,000 benchmark 64 contest. There was a staggering six-length margin back to the…

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HORSE RACING PICNIC legend Debbie Waymouth is set to have her first ride back at Balnarring on Saturday. The determined 66-year-old jock has gradually increased her workload after suffering a serious fall at Woolamai in January. Waymouth, showing her trademark toughness, makes her return after recovering from nine broken ribs, a fractured sternum, collapsed lung, a hematothrorax (blood on her chest) as well as having had surgery to insert plates into her cheekbone and jaw following the fall. Despite initial doubt about whether she’d return to riding, Waymouth has continued to exceed everyone’s expectations. She returned to riding trackwork last…

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HORSE RACING CLIFF Brown’s The Inferno and Jason Warren and Dean Krongold’s Brooklyn Hustle will likely head to Sale on Friday 15 April. The two stable stars for the Mornington-based trainers are set to contest the inaugural running of The Country Discovery (1100m), an open handicap race, worth $500,000. Brown, who had The Inferno ready to go for the Group 1 William Reid Stakes (1200m) on March 25, was forced to scratch the gelding on the morning of the race because of a sore foot. He had been installed as the second-favourite for the race prior to the scratching. “24…

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HORSE RACING IN a rarity for the Mornington races, it was looking as though no Mornington-based trainer would get a win at the feature Mornington Cup meeting on Saturday 26 March until the local Tony Noonan stable struck glory in the last. Despite jumping as a $20 outsider in the field, the consistent It’s Tornado Storm flew the flag for the locals swooping around the field to win comfortably by two lengths. In front of a crowd of 5,000, trainer Tony Noonan was ecstatic to get the result on Cup day with his son, Jake Noonan, also riding the winner.…

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HORSE RACING IT was a weekend to remember for the connections of dual-Group 1 winner Streets of Avalon and his full-sister Orlando Grove. The Shane Nichols-trained gelding was brave to place third in the world’s richest mile race, the $5million All-Star Mile, at Flemington on Saturday before his promising full-sister, also trained by Nichols, made a winning return at Yarra Valley on the Sunday. It took two highly talented gallopers in Zaaki and I’m Thunderstruck to beat the tough seven-year-old who picked up $360,000 in prize money for placing third, beaten just over two lengths. Mornington-based trainer Shane Nichols was…

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