A soft track at Randwick last Saturday paved the way for Scone mare Ballinderry Sal to spring a surprise in the Class 3 TAB Highway Handicap (1400m).
The five-year-old Dissident mare is unplaced from seven starts on good tracks but has the formidable record of six starts for four wins and a second on soft and heavy.
Punters might have thought last Saturday’s soft 6 wasn’t wet eough for her, because she drifted from $21 to $31 despite having won at her previous start, in a 1400-metre benchmark 58 at her home track.
“She loves the sting out of the ground,” said trainer Rod Northam.
“When she won at Scone, we thought she only had one more chance at a Highway because she’s won three races, so we targeted this.”
Ballinderry Sal was ridden by Dylan Gibbons, who has only just returned to race riding after having been sidelined for several months following a shoulder reconstruction.
He rode the winner at a kilo over her allotted weight of 54 kilos, which had nothing to do with his shoulder injury, but a lot to do with the jockey’s visit to the Royal Sydney Show the previous day.
“I had to ride a kilo over because I enjoyed the Easter Show a bit too much yesterday,” Gibbons admitted.
In fairness to Gibbons, Ballinderry Sal was the second emergency for the race and appeared unlikely to get a run when he headed off to the show.
Nock back, eyeing title
Another Scone trainer to record a metropolitan win on Easter Saturday was Brett Cavanough, who took out the 1400-metre Class 3 at Eagle Farm with the three-year-old Merchant Gold ($12), ridden by Damien Thornton.
Still on Cavanough, apprentice Braith Nock has returned to his stable after a three-month stint in Sydney with Peter Snowden, during which time he rode 20 winners from 88 rides in the metropolitan area, leaving him just two wins behind Molly Bourke in the race for this season’s apprentice championship.
“I’ve knocked quite a few wins off in a short period of time,” Nock said. “(The title) is definitely within striking distance now so we’ll go with it and see what we can do.
“It wasn’t necessarily our aim — if anything, it was to be next season — but we’re quite close now so we might as well go for it.”
A few to follow …
The trend of city stables winning country cups continued the previous day at Albury, with the 2000-metre Albury Gold Cup won by the Chris Waller-trained Matusalem ($5.50) from three Victorian raiders — Beltoro, My Brothers Keeper and Gregolimo. Reece Jones was the winning rider.
At Moruya on Easter Saturday, local trainer Natalie Jarvis led in a winning double while apprentices Sinead Peebles and Rebecca Bronette Prag rode a double apiece.  
The same afternoon at Kembla Grange, the Chris Waller-trained filly Kilkenny justified her short price ($1.35), careering away to an eight-length win in the 1500-metre maiden plate.
Sure, it was just a maiden, but given her dominance and the fact that she comes from the all powerful Waller stable, she looks like one to follow.
At the Nowra meeting on Sunday, Goulburn’s Pat Murphy and Warwick Farm-based Amanda Turner each trained a double to share the honours.
Murphy trained the first two winners on the program. The second, Sparklenglitter, scored a most impressive 4½-length win as $2.30 favourite in the 1000-metre Class 1 with Richard Bensley in the saddle.
The All Too Hard mare is unbeaten from two starts and should prove worth following.
At Mudgee the same afternoon the Scott Singleton-trained $2.10 favourite Zoomorphic won the $50,000 Super Maiden (1400m) in similarly dominant fashion under Mitchell Bell, putting 5¼ lengths between him and runner-up Magic Sorcerer.
It was the four-year-old’s 10th start but now that he’s broken through he could pay to follow.
In the following race, the 1100-metre maiden, the Jarrod Austin-trained Rotho Bro ($5) recorded a comfortable 3¼-length win under Aaron Bullock with a further three lengths to third.
The winner, a three-year-old Rothesay colt, was resuming from a spell and having just his second race start, so is likely to take improvement from the run.
Another to impress was Deion ($6.50), who won the 1200-metre Class 2 by 3¼ lengths with apprentice Tilly McCarroll in the saddle. The win brought up a double for McCarroll, who’d earlier taken out the 1200-metre maiden aboard Maktabi ($31) for Scone trainer Sandra Ollerton.  
Cups galore
Anzac Day is cup day at Nyngan in the centre of the state, with the main race over 1400 metres.  
Saturday sees country cups at Leeton in the Riverina and at Merriwa in the Upper Hunter, the features over 1600 and 1350 metres respectively. On the same afternoon in the South West Slopes, the Southern District Picnic Race Club will conduct its annual meeting, featuring the 1400-metre Cootamundra Picnic Cup.
On Sunday at Narromine, the 1300-metre Narromine Diggers Cup will be the feature race.