TUESDAY: June 8, 2021: HAWKESBURY co-trainers Tara and Philippe Vigouroux took special pleasure from Winona Costin’s win on lightly-raced Lemaire at Bathurst today.
The former champion Sydney apprentice was on track for her most successful season as a senior rider when she sustained severe facial injuries at Gundagai on April 11.
After winning the opening event – her 46th of the season – Costin was dislodged from her mount behind the barrier prior to the third race.
She did not resume riding until last Thursday at Wyong, and Lemaire ($4.40) was her first winner at her eighth ride back.
With 47 wins, Costin is now only one shy of equalling her best senior season in 2018-19.
“Winona came out to our stable at Hawkesbury last week, and worked Lemaire on her first day back in the saddle,” Tara Vigouroux said this evening.
“It was so nice for him to be her first winner back.”
Coincidentally, Costin’s victory was achieved on a horse named after another jockey, one of the world’s best in France’s Christophe Lemaire, who won the 2011 Melbourne Cup on Dunaden in a tense finish.
The three-year-old son of Zariz was not surprisingly named by Philippe Vigouroux, himself of French origin.
Lemaire, who did not begin racing until earlier this year, was having his fifth start and broke through in the CG&E Maiden Handicap (1200m).
Always in touch, he was too strong over the closing stages for fellow Hawkesbury representative, Henry Reeves’ Sombre Prize ($12), and Charge Again ($8.50), giving Team Vigouroux its seventh win of the season.
Tara Vigouroux described Lemaire as a “lovely, friendly horse” and still “very immature”.
“We’ve got his younger full brother as well, and haven’t done much with him as yet as he’s also very immature,” she said.
Sadly, Lemaire and his younger brother’s dam, the Testa Rossa mare Testalina, died in January this year.
Lemaire’s win continued the successful association between Team Vigouroux and Kooringal Stud, near Wagga.
“We lease him from Kooringal, and it is always lovely to get a winner for them as they have been such great supporters of our stable,” Tara Vigouroux said.
. Whilst there was understandable joy for the Vigouroux stable, fellow Hawkesbury trainer Henry Reeves had to be content with second, chasing his first winner since Stormy Benz scored at Mudgee in July, 2016.