BUCKO GETS FRAZER BACK IN THE WINNING LIST

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GARRY Frazer and Grant Buckley go back a long way.

As far back as more than three and a half decades ago when the Hawkesbury trainer unsuccessfully tried to give a then young Buckley his first winner at Nowra on an open company horse which missed the start.

That was well and truly forgotten today when Buckley hoisted multiple Group 1 winner Frazer back into the winning list at Hawkesbury on $81 outsider Binkou.

And Frazer afterwards could not have been more complimentary about the journeyman jockey’s performance in the Remembering Ryan Midway Benchmark 64 Handicap (1800m).

“You won’t see a better ride anywhere than that,” Frazer said this evening.

“Grant got Binkou over on to the fence from the outside barrier (10), and kept saving ground.

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“Then he got the horse away from the inside to the outside in the straight, and that’s where Binkou likes to be.”

Just as fellow Hawkesbury trainer Marc Chevalier’s $3.20 favorite The Iron Star was being hailed the winner, Binkou came through on his inside and edged him out.

Frazer, who keeps only five or six horses in work these days, but also successfully trains a few greyhounds, had been out of the winning list since February 15 last year – and that was a special moment for the pair.

Buckley’s victory on the same horse (Binkou) in a Provincial Benchmark 64 Handicap (1880m) – this time as a $9 chance – clinched him “the sweetest treble” of his lengthy career.

He had been back riding only a week after a freakish mounting yard incident at Wyong on June 2024 very nearly left him paralysed.

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Buckley had just put his feet in the irons when the horse reared and flipped over on him, shattering his pelvis.

Whilst Binkou was the second rank outsider of the 10-horse field, Frazer said the seven-year-old gelding’s return to winning form wasn’t a total surprise.

“Binkou ran last of nine (with 61kg) in a Benchmark 66 Handicap (1800m) at Bathurst on July 27, but the track was like concrete that day and he jarred up and wouldn’t stretch out,” he explained.

““Grant also rode him then and was happy to stick with him, and Binkou had 6kg less today.

“When we had rain on Sunday night to take the jar out of the track, I knew he would be better suited, and I gave him a chance.

“Binkou can win again provided he gets the track to suit, and gets to the outside in the straight.”

STORY JOHN CURTIS, AUGUST 11, 2026 - PICS BRADLEY PHOTOS