A SPECIAL guest wth links to one of Australia's finest racehorses and a couple of Bundaberg trainers took centre stage at the Rockhampton Amateurs last weekend.
To celebrate what has become Rockhampton racing's pre-eminent social event, organisers successfully lured Peter Tighe, once a co-owner of Winx (Street Cry-Vegas Showgirl-Al Akbar), to a sportsman's luncheon on May 10.
He was interviewed at length by racecaller Russell Leonard about all things racing, especially the now retired Winx, winner of 25 Group 1 races and more than $26 million in stakesmoney.
The luncheon, some guests thought, was the ideal segue into the Amateurs raceday on May 11.
Of the seven events, six were won by trainers based in or around Rockhampton including Adrian Coombe's Poetic Heart in the feature Amateurs Cup (1600m).
Poetic Heart (Show A Heart-Poiym) beat home the Sunshine Coast-based Epic Rant and Guissola.
Other locals to win were Tom Button in the Milne Brothers Country Cup (1600m) with Rhyola (Lope De Vega-Up 'N' Doing), Lyle Rowe with Legal Asset (Rothsay-Miss Vitality) in the Capricorn Credit Union 2YO (1200m), Ricky Vale in the Ray White Rural Handicap (1050m) through Now Ask Me (Hidden Dragon-Tully Cello), Stephen Rundle wth Our Top Shelf in the Frasers Livestock Transport 3YO (1100m) and Jim O'Shea with Barachiel in the Bracelet (1200m).
However, the Bundaberg-based Darryl Gardiner and Mary Hassam provided the quinella in the Clark Rubber Benchmark 65 (12300) with Mr Phenomenal (Phenomenons-Forewarning) beating Daunting Queen across the line.
