Picnic racing last Saturday returned to one of its premier tracks at Balnarring, where the racing was ultra-competitive as always but not as straightforward as the punters expected, with none of the favourites saluting.
The biggest upset of the day, on a second glance at the form, probably shouldn’t have been. Sale trainer Heather Stephens placed her nine-year-old mare Satin Image to advantage in the 1600-metre open trophy, her first try in picnic company in 40 starts, and was duly rewarded.
The daughter of Bullet Train was taken to the front, well rated by Dani Walker and never really looked in trouble, winning at the outsider’s price of $18.
Satin Image was midfield at Bairnsdale in a 12-horse contest just two runs prior, but this was just her third win — and her first since she took out a benchmark 64 at Pakenham in May 2023.
Stephens bought the mare as a weanling for $1000 at the Inglis Great Southern sale in 2018. In the same sale she bought A Penny Spent, another Bullet Train weanling, for $2000.
The recently retired A Penny Spent won at Sale in August, so now both bargain buys can lay claim to being winners post their ninth birthday.
Coops in the last
It’s been a slightly frustrating start to the season for leading rider Shaun Cooper, but he didn’t leave Balnarring empty-handed, taking the last race on Discobay for Adrian McGregor.
After 36 starts the six-year-old Cable Bay mare now has two wins, both of which have been for the McGregor stable after she did some early racing for Clayton Douglas and Adam Hanley.
Cooper has four winners from 4½ meetings, with 11 seconds and three thirds keeping him back in the pack.
In the meantime Leigh Taylor (first on the premiership table with six wins at 40%) and Ray Douglas (fourth on three wins at 30%) have been making the most of their opportunities, and both were again in the winner’s stall at Balnarring.
Taylor won the first race, the maiden, on Brazen Beau gelding Brazen Martini for Steven Noble, while Douglas teamed up with Sale trainer Andrew Perdon and his tough mare Ocean’s Jen for a win in the 1200-metre open trophy.
Ocean’s Jen, another nine-year-old winner on the card, has recently returned with her trainer from a stint in the Northern Territory.
During their time away Ocean’s Jen managed wins at Fannie Bay in Darwin and at Kununurra.
Perdon also got a win out of Faberge Tzar at Darwin and several placings from Dummy Spit, both of whom have stayed in the territory with Tommy Logan.
The other two races on the card were won by jockeys at the opposite ends of a career.
Experienced horsewoman Debbie Waymouth punched out daughter Rebecca’s horse Mexican Fiddler to victory in race two, while three-kilo claimer Charlie Brooks got Dente’s Inferno home for Edmund Bourke. Eighteen hours earlier Bourke’s other horse in work — the quirky but talented Savvie Blanc — ran on well for third at Cranbourne.