LOCAL TRAINERS BAG HALF HOME PROGRAM

THURSDAY, July 3, 2025: THERE’S no place like home!

Hawkesbury trainers revelled in their home track’s second last meeting of the season today, capturing half the eight-race program and boosting to 156 the number of winners prepared by the local base since August 1.

Terry Croft landed the opener and Jason Attard the closer, and Brad Widdup and Steve O’Halloran were successful in between.

Croft took the Godolphin Family Funday Midway Maiden Handicap (1000m) with newcomer Tides Turning ($4.40), Widdup scored first-up with $1.45 hotpot Bella Khadijah in the HRC Motel Provincial Class 1 Handicap (1400m), O’Halloran’s Mal Coupe ($2.60) continued his consistent form this season by winning the Essential Asset + Fire Conditional Benchmark 68 Handicap (1100m), and Attard rounded off the day with Oh Golly Gosh ($13) in the Clarendon Tavern Benchmark 64 Handicap (1600m).

Croft’s victory with Flying Artie three-year-old Tides Turning brought back memories as she is the fifth foal but the first he has trained out of his former mare Catseye Surprise, with whom he won four races, including one in town in 2014 and the Big Maiden at Grafton’s July carnival the previous year.

“I was going back with her to try to win that race again (at the Cup meeting on July 17) if she didn’t win today,” he said this evening.

“But it has worked out well just the same and all credit to the filly’s owners as they have had to be very patient with her.”

 Tides Turning was passed in at the 2023 Inglis HTBA yearling sale and, whilst Croft said she was a nice filly, he wasn’t too fussed on her action.

“One of the owners said just go and buy her and we got her for $22,000,” he said.

“Unfortunately, she kept going sore in front and as a result went in and out of our stable a few times.

“The patience has paid off and she has been really good this time in work, and the tide started turning.

“She wasn’t named until the start of this preparation, and that’s how she got it.

“Tides Turning will be even better next preparation.”

Apprentice Mollie Fitzgerald rode Tides Turning at her debut when fifth at home on June 17, and had the mount again.

“Mollie has a pretty good strike rate for me from only as handful of rides,” Croft said.

Leading Hawkesbury trainer Widdup clinched his 56^th season winner when Bella Khadijah resumed and won easily.

“She is a quirky mare, but definitely has ability and I’m hoping to get her to Saturday grade in town this preparation,” he said.

“I would have preferred to run her at 1300m first-up, but tackling provincial horses at 1400m was suitable enough.

“Whilst it wasn’t the strongest Class 1, she was too classy for her rivals.

“Jason Collett rode her in both recent trials, and was keen to stick with her, so that was obviously a good pointer.”

Bella Khadijah took Widdup to 13 home wins for the season to share top spot with Annabel and Rob Archibald in the Hawkesbury premiership – with only the July 20 fixture remaining.

O’Halloran’s Extravagant three-year-old Mal Coupe has come a long way since when as a younger horse, he crashed through a fence on his owners’ Gary and Kay Stevenson’s property near Orange.

He was cut from the shoulder to the fetlock joint, and a vet recommended he be put down.

“Touch wood Mal Coupe (a French name which translated to English means badly cut) hasn’t had a day’s lameness since he came to me,” O’Halloran said.

“Just don’t look at the scar on his near foreleg.

“Mal Coupe has really blossomed this preparation, with his four runs producing two wins and two seconds.

“Winona Costin gave him a great ride. She jumped him away smartly, and Mal Coupe gave a good kick on straightening and they were never really going to run him down.”

Attard described rising eight-year-old mare Oh Golly Gosh, ridden by newest Group 1 winning jockey Tom Sherry, as an “old trouper”.

“She is so easy to manage, and it was great to see her get back in the winning list today,” Attard said.

“I felt she ran well enough at Wyong last time from an outside draw in an unsuitable 1300m on the tight track to give her a chance getting up to 1600m.

“And she loves racing, especially at Hawkesbury, where three of her four wins have been.

“Oh Golly Gosh has an excellent record at home with those three wins and five placings from a dozen starts.”

Attard and Sherry will join forces again at Rosehill Gardens on Saturday when three-year-old filly Oui Oui Oui races in the same colours, in the Benchmark 72 Handicap (1300m).

. RacingNSW stewards handed out careless riding suspensions to apprentices Mollie Fitzgerald and Ryan Bradley, and also fined another apprentice Jace McMurray $200 for excessive whip use in the last race, and another $200 for returning to the jockeys’ room before weighing in.