GRILLS’ 20-YEAR ABSENCE AT HAWKESBURY ENDS

TWO decades have passed since country racing trail-blazer Sue Grills has started a horse at Hawkesbury.

The highly respected Tamworth trainer is back there tomorrow with two runners for the metropolitan midweek meeting.

Grills was on the road this morning with Somerton Smart and Crimson Bonnet (pictured), and has called on former Tamworth apprentice Siena Grima (now based in Sydney with leading trainer Chris Waller) to ride both, hoping for better fortune than her previous visit to the provincial track.

It was a Sunday meeting (October 23, 2005) when her mare Underfoot ($7), ridden by Grant Buckley, was narrowly beaten by $2.90 favorite Silk and Money (trained by the late Pat Quinn) in a 1000m Open Handicap.

Grills, who has trained more than 800 winners, hails from a distinguished racing family.

Her grandfather Arthur Gore and uncle Keith Swan were legendary country trainers, who always held their own whenever they brought horses to town.

Her father Max McGrath was Swan’s foreman for many years, and her brother Ron was apprenticed to Swan and rode successfully.

Grills also was apprenticed to her uncle, becoming the first female to be licensed in the Hunter and North West Racing Association.

Women were permitted to ride against their male counterparts in 1979, and she rode 33 winners before “retiring”, saying they were “hard times with a lot of jockeys and fewer meetings”.

Grills later joined Swan as his foreman and, a year after his death in 2003, moved from Somerton to take up stables nearby at Tamworth racecourse.

Not only was she the first female apprentice in the HNWRA, but also the first of her sex to win that region’s trainers’ premiership in 2014-15 with 46 winners, after her 14-times winner Border Rebel was named NSW Country Horse of the Year in 2010.

Grills also purchased Meerlust (the dam of Hawkesbury trainer Ed Cummings’ now retired triple Group 1 winner Duais) for $22,000 as a 2009 Scone yearling on behalf of Matthew Irwin and Peter Harris.

Not surprisingly given her upbringing, Grills named a yearling she paid $37,500 for at the 2024 Inglis Classic yearling sale in Sydney as Somerton Smart.

He takes on metropolitan company at only his fourth start (having already won twice in the country) in the Elite Sand & Soil Benchmark 64 Handicap (1100m) for three-year-olds.

Grima’s 3kg city allowance lessen the gelding’s weight to 56.5kg, bringing him in on the limit.

She partnered Somerton Smart, a son of Exceedance, in his first two wins in a Super Maiden (1200m) at Coonabarabran on October 26 last year, and a Class 1 (1200m) at Quirindi on November 13.

He resumed with a close fourth to Shotgun Bella (subsequently placed at Warwick Farm) in a Class 2 Handicap (1100m) at Scone on March 20, after starting from the outside barrier in a field of 10.

That was an excellent performance as he raced three wide and without cover throughout, and was beaten just over a length.

Whereas Somerton Smart again has to cope with the outside alley (nine), it’s the opposite with stablemate Crimson Bonnet.

She jumps from the inside barrier in the Evergreen Turf Benchmark 72 Handicap (1100m) for mares four-year-old and upwards at her first start this preparation.

Crimson Bonnet, a five-year-old daughter of Ribchester, has won five of her 21 starts.

She hasn’t raced since finishing fifth to King Charles in a Benchmark 68 Handicap (1150m) at the Beaumont track on December 13.

Somerton Smart this morning with TAB.com.au was sharing favoritism at $4 with the Richard and Will Freedman-trained Lighthouse Lass (Jason Collett), whereas his stablemate was at $12; Madrina and Fiorenza vying for favoritism, also at $4.

. Leading Newcastle trainer Kris Lees this morning confirmed promising three-year-old Night Agent as a Hawkesbury runner, in the Richmond Club Benchmark 72 Handicap (1500m) for three and four-year-olds.

He was also nominated for both the Group 2 Arrowfield 3YO Sprint (1200m) and Listed South Pacific Classic (1400m) at Royal Randwick on Saturday on Day 2 of The Championships.

Night Agent was named after the popular Netflix series The Night Agent.

Successful at two of his four starts to date, the gelding blitzed a Benchmark 58 Handicap (1350m) field at the Beaumont track on March 23 by a whopping 10 lengths.

Tom Sherry rode him then, and has the mount again.

“Night Agent is a really nice horse, and untapped,” Lees said.

“This is another step up, and will give us a good guide as to where we are at with him.”

Night Agent’s performance could be a forerunner to a tilt at the Group 3 Hawkesbury Guineas (1400m) at the club’s Saturday stand-alone meeting on May 2.

Despite the class rise, TAB.com.au is taking no chances with Night Agent, who is a dominant $2.25 favorite for tomorrow’s assignment.

. The rail is out 5m from the 1100m to 450m, and in the TRUE position for the remainder of the track. Course manager Digby Nuthall at 8am today posted a ‘Soft 5’ rating. A total of 9mm of rain has been recorded in the past seven days, but nil in the previous 24 hours. Similarly there has been no irrigation put on the track in the last 24 hours, but 8mm in the past week.

The six-race metropolitan midweek program begins at 2.05pm.

STORY JOHN CURTIS, APRIL 7, 2026 - PICS BRADLEY PHOTOS