BLUEBLOOD MARE'S FLEMINGTON ROMP TOPS OFF "LEARNING CURVE"

SUNDAY: November 9, 2025: BRAD Widdup was getting annoyed!

Hawkesbury’s leading trainer couldn’t fathom why well-bred mare Sunset Park was getting beaten in midweek and Saturday Midway races in Sydney.

“I was frustrated,” Widdup said today. “I knew she had the ability, but wasn’t getting the job done.

“I started wondering whether there was something wrong.”

A trip to Melbourne changed everything. To some observers, it might have seemed simply having a “throw at the stumps” taking on tougher opposition at Melbourne’s spring carnival – but it certainly worked.

After a luckless third as the $71 rank outsider in the Group 3 Tesio Stakes (2040m) at the Cox Plate meeting at The Valley on October 25, Sunset Park, with Melbourne Cup heroine Jamie Melham on board, blew away her rivals in yesterday’s Group 2 Matriarch Stakes (2000m) on the final day of the Flemington carnival.

A $17 chance, the lightly-raced mare revelled in the heavy ground and turned the tables on Tesio winner She’s A Hustler ($2.70 favorite).

“It’s been a real learning curve,” Widdup admitted.

“The trip to Melbourne has done the trick. When she ran third at her first start there at The Valley and was unlucky not to have won, that opened my eyes.

“We were fortunate then to be able to get Jamie to ride Sunset Park.

“Declan Bates turned down the mount at The Valley and Lachlan Neindorf, who rode her that day, subsequently was suspended.”

Widdup, who returned to the scene of his 2022 maiden Group 1 triumph with Icebath, was especially pleased for Sydney businessman Adrian Whittingham, who races the mare under his Cross Park banner.

“Sunset Park could easily have gone to stud without racing,” he explained.

“She has a wonderful family line, and was entered for sale by Godolphin as an unraced three-year-old out of training in the broodmare section at a Tattersalls’ sale in the UK in December 2023.

“However they announced that she could be sold to race initially, and Adrian was able to buy her.”

Widdup had Sunset Park ready to begin her racing career when she suffered a setback after her second trial at Rosehill Gardens in July last year.

“I was sitting in my office, and had a feeling there was something wrong when the floated pulled in to the stables,” he explained.

“She had sustained a cut to a leg, and we had to stop and start again.”

A daughter of champion racehorse and stallion Sea The Stars (who sired his 143^rd stakes winner), Sunset Park began racing only this year and won two of her first three starts (1600m at Kembla Grange and 2000m at Hawkesbury), and is now the winner of four of her 11 starts.

Yesterday’s stunning victory has indeed added tremendously to her value as a future broodmare when her racing days are over.

Happy to do media and TV interviews after the Matriarch, Widdup didn’t know he had won another race at home with Pro Velocity ($21) not long after Sunset Park’s performance.

“It was a really good 10 minutes,” he said.

“When I was told the news, I thought it might have been another of Adrian’ horses Vondel, who was having her first start.”

In fact, it was a family result. Four-year-old mare Pro Velocity, raced by Widdup’s wife Milissa and daughter Maddie in partnership with breeder John Clancy, broke through at her 11^th start in the All Aspects Roofing F&M Maiden Plate (1400m), at her first start since finishing fifth at home over a middle distance in late June

“Pro Velocity’s win couldn’t have come at a better time for Maddie,” Widdup said. “She has just secured a position as an apprentice hairdresser.”

Whilst Pro Velocity was resuming, the Proisir mare’s win wasn’t altogether unexpected.

“Andrew Adkins rode her in a trial, and recommended putting blinkers on her,” Widdup said.

Pro Velocity was Widdup’s seventh home track winner so far this season, ensuring he maintains his lead in his title defence after beating all comers in last season’s Hawkesbury premiership.

Winning rider, apprentice Mitch Stapleford, was later fined $400 by stewards for using the whip nine times (four more than permitted) prior to the 100m.

. Fellow Hawkesbury trainer Peter Green won a race at Gosford last Thursday as well as Widdup, and it was the same at home yesterday.

Green landed the Belle Property Hawkesbury CG&E Maiden Plate (1400m) with recent acquisition Coyote ($3.60).

Ridden by Mitchell Bell, the former Victorian surged wide out on the track to defeat $2.90 favorite Patonga.

The four-year-old son of Alabama Express was having only his third start for his new stable.

“I was looking for a tried horse to add to our team, and we were able to buy him online in July for $30,000,” Green said.

“I syndicated him and brought in some new clients, so it was a great to get a result with him so quickly.

“I feel he will manage even further if we can get him to settle.

“He is getting better in that regard, so we’re looking forward to more success with him.”

Green has nine horses in work at Hawkesbury, with five of them in racing trim at present, including $19 Gosford winner Bold and Blazen.