First Saturday city win for Widdup

Saturday 29 July 2017, 3:27pm

Although Brad Widdup is no stranger to big-race wins in his former profession, the fledgling trainer's first Saturday metropolitan winner is one to savour.

Widdup worked for Sheikh Mohammed's Darley operation under Peter Snowden and stayed on when John O'Shea took over as head trainer under the Godolphin banner.

He attended to many of the stable's Group One winners over the years but was excited to be at Rosehill with one under his own name.

Earlier this year, Widdup branched out to train at Hawkesbury, primarily for Damion Flower, and Suspenders gave him his first city win in Saturday's #theraces Handicap (1200m) when she fought off Slumber Party to win by a neck, with Faith's Encore in third.

"That's Brad's fifth winner from just 15 starters," Flower said.

"He's going great guns and I couldn't be happier."

Widdup's first starter on May 29, Junglized, won at Canberra, and four different horses including Suspenders make up his other winners.

"Things are going really well," Widdup said.

Suspenders was the second leg of a winning double for Widdup's brother-in-law Christian Reith, who earlier rode the Greg McFarlane-trained Clear The Beach to win the ATC Owner Benefits Card (1100m).

McFarlane, who is based on the Central Coast, will now aim Clear The Beach, the winner of three of his nine starts, at next year's Provincial Championship.

Both the Provincial and Country Championship finals at Randwick have received a prize money boost to $500,000.

– 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 »