Dunn to ride Happy Trails in Cox Plate

Sunday 6 October 2013, 3:48pm

Dwayne Dunn has been confirmed as the Cox Plate rider for Happy Trails after Damien Oliver's dramatic call-up to ride Fiorente.

Nash Rawiller was sacked as Fiorente's jockey after the Gai Waterhouse-trained horse finished fourth in Saturday's Turnbull Stakes won by Happy Trails with Dunn filling in on the winner for the suspended Oliver.

Happy Trails' trainer Paul Beshara said he was more than happy to have Dunn aboard.

"It was never completely locked in that Damien would ride and I'm happy that Dwayne will ride him in the Cox Plate," Beshara said.

"The horse has pulled up really well and will spend the next few days on the water walker."

Oliver's booking on Fiorente is for the Cox Plate and the Melbourne Cup in which the imported horse ran second at his first Australian start in 2012. He is now favourite for this year's Cup.

"I'm very excited to be on him," Oliver told racingvictoria.net.au.

"He's been running super so far this spring and he looks a great chance in both the Cox Plate and the Melbourne Cup."

Fiorente is on the third line of betting for the Cox Plate with Atlantic Jewel favourite over It's A Dundeel who beat her in the Underwood Stakes.

A foot abscess is threatening It's A Dundeeel's scheduled start in the Caulfield Stakes with the four-year-old to be monitored over the next few days.

Rawiller gave up rides at Sydney's two richest spring meetings to ride Fiorente in Melbourne, missing last month's $1 million Golden Rose and Saturday's Epsom/Metropolitan meeting at Randwick.

In an ironic twist, Rawiller is expected to ride Fiorente's stablemate Divine Calling in Saturday's Caulfield Guineas, replacing Oliver who will partner the Tony Vasil-trained Prince Harada.

Oliver has ridden Divine Calling to two wins in Melbourne in the lead-up to the Group One Guineas.

– 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 »