By Tony Megahey
Multiple Western and Central Districts premiership trainer Brett Thompson fancies his chances at Monday’s booming Coonabarabran Cup TAB meeting.
The Gulgong based former publican and sheep and cattle farmer maintains a consistent strike rate and has four runners at the eight-race Coonabarabran TAB meeting that features the $45,000 Bowling Club Cup and the $27,000 Regional Australia Bank and Ausure Insurance Sprint.
“My best is Sea Lady on Monday, she’s real smart, we’ve just taken over her training,'' Thompson said.
“She’s the mare that ran second in the Dubbo leg of the Country Championships, bit unlucky not to win it.
“And All Ellie I reckon will also run a decent race for us, she's been close up all her runs. Just hasn’t been finishing off her races, so we might bring her back in distance.''
Sea Lady is with Thompson because her owner-trainer Wayne Martyn, based at Coonabarabran, was suspended.
Sea Lady wins first-up at Dubbo on September 16
“Her run in the big race at Dubbo was enormous,'' he said.
“She was impressive winning first up at Dubbo, got right over the top of them on a firm track. Then second up she struck a heavy ten, so forget the run.”
From her Country Championship effort, Sea Lady is back in grade to a BM 66 Barron’s Tyre and Mechanical (1600m).
“I’ve got another one on Monday that has shown ability - Tallyman is resuming but its wait and see as I’m not convinced on his work he’s come up as well this time in,” he said.
In the feature, Coonamble Cup winner Red Knot is again the galloper to beat with the scratching of his regular rival A Magic Zariz.
Red Knot goes up in weight from his recent Coonamble Cup win but still benefits by the 4kg claim for promising apprentice Reece Jones who rated him perfectly in the lead to win.
Another leading contender All But Gone was scratched to run at Taree on Friday.
The sprint feature is up with the strongest of any on the country circuit and bristles city form with Under The Thumb, Our Dasha and Bright Future all highly competitive in town recently.
Significantly, Greg Ryan is back on Our Dasha after two early career wins and Derek Piper’s sprinter has the impressive record of five wins from just 12 career starts.
Coonabarabran is rated a soft six surface with fine weather predicted and a typically huge crowd anticipated.
All the fields, form and replays for Monday's Coonabarabran Cup meeting