WIDDUP DOUBLES UP AT SEASON OPENER

THURSDAY: August 1, 2024: TWO starters on your home track for two winners!

Brad Widdup could not have wished for a better start to the new season as he scored with Party Doll and Troika to become the early premiership front-runner.

Hawkesbury’s leading trainer followed his 61 winners in the season just concluded, and was understandably pleased to get both back into the winning list.

“We found the right set-ups for Party Doll and Troika, and they needed to win,” Widdup said this evening.

“It’s been a while between drinks.”

Party Doll ($3.80) defeated $2.60 favorite Still Alice in the Blakes Marine Class 1 Handicap (1000m), with fellow Hawkesbury trainer Garry Frazer’s Our Lady Stardust ($21) third.

It was the five-year-old mare’s second victory; her first being in a 900m Newcastle Maiden in April last year.

Owner John Cordina’s Summertime Thoroughbreds bred the daughter of Sooboog from his High Chaparral mare Monaco Doll, whose five wins were at distances from 1600m to 2300m, and she was also placed in the 3200m Queensland Cup at the Sunshine Coast in 2015.

But whilst Widdup says his mare might be a “party doll”, she is definitely not a stayer like her mother.

“Things didn’t go Party Doll’s way this preparation and she ran into a couple of heavy tracks, so I stopped with her after she failed on very heavy ground at Newcastle on June 1,” he said.

“I gave her a couple of weeks off, and didn’t trial her when I noticed this race coming up.

“Tyler (Schiller) gave her a great ride, and he thinks she will manage 1200m.

“But I’m certainly not thinking any further than that.”

Party Doll is Monaco Doll’s third foal, and Widdup also trained the mare’s second foal Sky Ace (by Sooboog as well), whose four wins have been from 1400m to 2100m.

He also has the pair’s younger half-sister Rock All Night (by Rock Hero) and, whilst the three-year-old filly is yet to race, he says she is shaping like a stayer.

Widdup’s apprentice Zac Wadick has also finished a breakout season with 64 winners, and his 2kg provincial claim on Troika ($7) in the Clarendon Tavern Benchmark 68 Handicap (1100m) almost certainly meant the difference between victory and defeat.

In an all-Hawkesbury affair, Troika just edged out Mike Van Gestel’s Titan Star ($6.50) and Ed O’Rourke’s Zavaboom ($6.50).

The Russian Revolution five-year-old gelding was a $155,000 weanling purchase for Laurel Oak Bloodstock, and began his career with the now Hong Kong-based Mark Newnham.

Troika has raced seven times since joining Widdup’s team and this was his fourth career success (and second for his current trainer).

Both have been at Hawkesbury over 1100m; the first being in a Provincial Benchmark 64 Handicap on February 13 when also partnered by Wadick.

RacingNSW stewards dismissed a protest lodged by Titan Star’s apprentice rider Molly Bourke, saying that whilst Troika did shift in near the 50m and made slight contact with the runner-up, he continued to hold a slight margin to the finish.

Bearing in mind the minor nature of the contact and the half-head margin, stewards could not be satisfied a reversal of placings was warranted.