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By Colin Hodges

Record fields will grace the turf at the Forbes Jockey Club meeting on Saturday with the TAB covered fixture extended to eight races following the huge support from owners and trainers from a wide area of the State.

From the 168 nominations there were 121 final acceptors and half the programme comprises 14 horse fields plus emergencies while a number of potential starters missed out in ballots.

Greg Ryan rides Molasses at Forbes on Saturday.

Feature event is the $22,000 Australia Day Handicap over 1400 metres with the local hope being Molasses trained at Forbes by Dennis Bush for Danny Kotel from Grenfell and to be ridden by champion jockey Greg Ryan.

Over spring Molasses won the Crystal Sprint at Coonamble and the Cup Day Sprint at Coonabarabran, on both occasions producing a powerful finishing run.

At Cowra last Sunday, Molasses settled well back before making late ground to finish seventh over 1200 metres in the Cowra Japan Cup.

Cowra trainer Andrew Molloy had a winning double with Valerian and Just A Flash and went within a half head of making it five wins in the Cowra Japan Cup by Zarhron however his grand sprinter was overhauled in the final stride by the David Smith trained Distinctive Look.

Welcome Art, which won the 1700 metres Cowra Cup in 2019 and finished third in the Orange Cup and fourth in the Bathurst Cup, resumes from a spell to contest the main event at Forbes for Andrew Molloy.

Intueri from the Canberra stables of Doug Gorrel is a former well performed galloper in Melbourne with over $270,000 prizemoney and has been allocated the 63.5kg top weight.

At the other end of the Handicap scale is the noted frontrunner The Long Run to be ridden by apprentice Ashleigh Stanley for her father, Bathurst trainer Peter.W.Stanley.

From the last six starts The Long Run has recorded four wins, at Mudgee, Warren, Bathurst and Dubbo.

For over a century the neighbouring towns of Forbes and Parkes have been fierce rivals on the sporting field particularly in football and cricket however the Parkes Jockey Club which had to abandon their Australia Day meeting due to the drought are giving wholehearted support to the replacement Forbes meeting.

Buses will run from the Ex-Services Club at Parkes to the Forbes races and the opening event at 12.51pm has been named the Parkes Jockey Club Supporters Maiden Handicap.

Forbes is located beside the Lachlan River and beautiful Lake Forbes and Tom Molloy has been able to prepare an outstanding track for Saturday.

Major sponsors are Walkers AG-N-VET, Forbes Livestock And Agency and Shane Davie Concreting.

All the fields, form and replays for Saturday's Forbes meeting