Good Things Come to Those who Wait

It was starting to look like the Northern Carnival that got away for the Hatch Townsville Stables, until a great ride from Shannon Apthorpe had Sayl fly home to win the Cup on Cairns Amateurs Day on the weekend. Lindsay Hatch said the plan this year was to have the horses peaking for the Townsville and Cairns Carnivals as it was just too hard to have them up racing from the Rockhampton Cup all the way through to the Cairns Amateurs Cup.

Last year Sayl won the Mackay Cup and was unlucky not to win the Townsville Cup two weeks later. Hatch decided not to go to the Cairns Carnival last year, however this year it would be his main target for Sayl.

The Northern Carnival this year was a case of close finishes but no major prizes. American Saint ran second in the Townsville Cup, Bring Me Flowers ran second in the Belle of The Burdekin and Sayl ran second in the Cairns Cup when extremely unlucky. Winning the Cup on the last day of the Northern Carnival in Carins was a big relief for the team. Sayl will head back to the Toowoomba stables now and head towards the Queensland Cup over 2400m in October.

It turned out to be a terrific day and night for the team with Hatch taking out a double in Toowoomba Saturday Night.

Wanda Rox could not have been more impressive, bringing up her fifth win and still remains undefeated. A great ride by Olivia Webb had the horse clear out in the straight to win by 3 lengths in the Stathi Katsidis Memorial. Lindsay says Wanda Rox will now take up the next step to Metro Racing.

Talking about impressive, Talk Time went back-to-back in race 2 over 1300m. Talk Time broke his maiden in style in Townsville last month, but this win was even better with a terrific ride from Madeleine Wishart. Talk Time also looks city bound.

Another eye catcher on the night was Tokyo Bandit in race 7. Put him in your black book, he looks ready to win the next start.