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It wasn’t the Dubbo Gold Cup, but Brooke Somers was just as happy as if she had won the feature event. The Hawkesbury trainer took one horse to Dubbo for the Showcase meeting on Sunday – and Star Bolt didn’t let her down.

Somers won the opening race, the Maiden Plate (1000m), with Star Bolt to give her a breakthrough success in the 2017-18 season. And she turned to jockey Paul King to get her off the mark – and clinch the fifth winner of her career at the same time.

The experienced King got Star Bolt ($4.40) home in a tight finish from Rawson Crossing ($9.50), with $3.50 favorite Goldylux third. King has been in the saddle for four of Somers’s five winners to date. Somers, a former show jumps rider, took out her licence last year and had her first starter just over 12 months ago.

She won her first race with her 11th starter (I Am Capitan) at Wyong on October 16 last year and five starters later notched a breakthrough city success when I Am Magnificent scored at $51 at a Warwick Farm midweek meeting in November.

Star Bolt has been the only horse Somers has started in this new season, and on Sunday was having his fifth start since resuming. A five-year-old gelding by Redoute’s Show, Star Bolt was having his 16th start and deserved a change of luck after four minor placings and being close to the money at every start this preparation.

He resumed at Dubbo on July 21 when fourth in a 1040m Maiden Plate, and returned there on Sunday to break his “duck”. Star Bolt subsequently was third at Hawkesbury, second at Gosford and fourth at Hawkesbury and looked very well suited returning to country class.

Aside from Somers’s first winner I Am Capitan and Star Bolt on Sunday, King also rode Repentant to wins at Nowra (February 26) and Scone (March 21) for the Hawkesbury trainer. Josh Parr had the mount when I Am Magnificent provided his trainer with her city breakthrough last November.

View the full results with race replays for Dubbo here