Double joy for trainer Nathan McPherson

Wednesday 26 July 2017, 4:41pm

Trainer Nathan McPherson has described scoring a double at Sandown in successive races as the best hour of his life.

The Cranbourne-based horseman has only two horses in work with both successful on Wednesday giving the 29-year-old his first city double.

Hunting Hill got the ball rolling in the Hamilton Reid Chartered Accountants Handicap (1300m) before Eurack demolished the field in the Comcater Handicap (1000m).

"I've had some moments, good and bad, in my life and this would be the biggest hour in my life," McPherson said after Eurack scored by 4-1/4 lengths.

"I've tried to pull off a city double a number of times but we've come up a bit short.

"Last time I got close to a double, Hunting Hill ran second."

McPherson hopes to build his team and has dreams of being a big name in training ranks.

"My record is that I've always been able to train but I've had a few setbacks and I've had to learn from them," he said.

"I've sorted my life out and I'm back on track and I want to let the horses do the talking."

McPherson has high hopes for Eurack but says he will be patient with the filly.

The three-year-old is unbeaten in two starts after scoring at Bendigo last month.

"I can't wait for six months time to see how she comes back," McPherson said.

"I had it in my mind she was going straight to the paddock after Bendigo but after a couple of days on the grass she put her head in my lap and said 'work me'.

"We picked out this race but now she's going to the paddock until she tells me otherwise.

"She doesn't need to prove anything yet, so she can wait until she grows a little bit more."

While Eurack is a straight-forward horse, McPherson said Hunting Hill could be a handful.

"He's got a few antics," McPherson said.

"He can cow-kick you at times. He doesn't mean it so for him to be the first piece of the puzzle today, I'm tickled pink."

Both winners were ridden by Ben Melham.

– AAP

Latest News

Prime Thoroughbreds - We have a Host of Leaders in our Team

Tuesday, 29 June 2021

Prime Thor­ough­bred’s cur­rent rac­ing team is putt­ing to­gether quite a re­cord. We have 22 hors­es that have raced in our team at pre­sent. Six­teen of th­ese are win­n­ers in­clud­ing the Stakes win­n­ing trio Ru­bisa­ki, Fituese and Xtreme­time with Miss Di­vine Em and Miss In Charge run­n­ing 4th in Stakes races. This sees a stakes win­n­er to win­n­er ra­tio of 18.75% with a stake’s per­formed to win­n­er ra­tio of 31.25%. Th­ese are ex­cep­tio­n­al fig­ures.   More »

Freedmans land maiden Group One win

Saturday, 27 February 2021

Un­der-rat­ed fil­ly For­bid­den Love has emerged as an au­tumn car­ni­val smokey with a bril­liant per­for­mance to win the Sur­round Stakes at Rand­wick.  More »

Capriccio completes Damian Lane treble

Saturday, 27 February 2021

In a big day for coun­try-trained hors­es, War­r­nam­bool fil­ly Capric­cio has tak­en out the In­glis Dash for Daniel Bow­man.  More »

More news headlines »