NEWCASTLE jockey Ash Morgan has a second NSW premiership safely in his keeping.
A double at Tamworth on Friday lifted him to 137.5 winners for the season; half a win over his “stablemate”, an injured Aaron Bullock, who also has the same manager.
Bullock won last year’s premiership by a “country mile”, riding 207.5 winners in a remarkable season, but suffered a broken collarbone in a spill at Newcastle last Saturday.
Sydney’s Tyler Schiller is next this season with 120 winners, but is too far back to overhaul Morgan.
The expatriate Welshman scored on Scone-trained Indifference ($7) in the Benchmark 82 Handicap (1600m) at Tamworth, and then hit the front in the State title by easily taking the last on $2.80 joint favorite Keitany.
He made no mistake on Newcastle trainer Patrick Cleave’s four-year-old mare, who took the lead not long after the jump and scored by two and a half lengths.
The Newcastle-based jockey will start a suspension – incurred at Grafton on July 14 – on Sunday, and will be able to resume on Saturday, July 27.
But it will make no difference to the final result of the 2023-24 NSW title.
Morgan won the NSW riding premiership two seasons ago; his 136 winners resulting in him finishing 15 wins ahead of Sydney’s champion jockey James McDonald.
Fellow Newcastle jockey Blake Spriggs also was a Tamworth winner, scoring on $31 roughie Cabral for Tamworth trainer Wayne Brown.
At the corresponding Queanbeyan meeting on Friday, Wyong and Kembla Grange trainers Allan Kehoe and Kerry Parker were in the winning list.
Kehoe landed the Class 3 Handicap (1000m) with $5.50 chance One Kind, ridden by apprentice Shannen Llewellyn.
Parker, who scored at his home track a day earlier with debutante Take You There at $31, won the Class 1/Maiden Plate (2000m) with $12 chance Slipstreaming, ridden by Nick Heywood.
Slipstreaming is raced by a Proven Thoroughbreds syndicate, and their black and lime green colours also were carried by Parker’s Kembla Grange winner.
Story John Curtis, July 20, 2024 - Pics supplied
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