PENSHURST Racing Club will consider injecting its own funds into stakemoney for next year’s Penshurst Cup after the club attracted only four runners for the $15,000 feature race which was won by the Cranbourne-trained Tube.
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Tube’s trainer Damien Williams, brother of champion jockey Craig Williams, was excited following the all-the-way win of the $2.50 favourite.
“I’ve got to give all the credit to the jockey Jackie Beriman. It was a perfect ride,” he said.
“I told her to lead on the horse after Niptious was scratched.
“She broke the field up mid-race and the result was never in doubt.
“It is a great result because I was pretty confident he could win.
“The owners just love the country race meetings. Country racing is a really good day, grassroots racing.”
Williams said Tube would try and win back-to-back Burrumbeet cups on Tuesday.
“We’re looking at running in the Burrumbeet Cup on New Year’s Day again,” he said.
“We won last year’s race but I’ll just give him an easy time at home over the next few days to have him ready for the race.
“We don’t have to do any work with him. He’s race fit and should be hard to beat again at Burrumbeet.
“He loves dry tracks and conditions today really suit him.” Beriman said Tube was in a class of his own in the four-horse field.
“Tube was just better than them,” the leading apprentice jockey said. “I had no worries in the run at all. He did it very easily.”
Club secretary John Donnelly said it was disappointing only four runners faced the starter in the 2000-metre race following the scratching of Niptious late on Monday night.
“There’s just a glut of racing at this time of the year,” he said.
“One club is always going to be light on for runners and it’s our turn today.
“We’re only a non-TAB meeting compared to TAB meetings. We’re going to have to look at putting some of our funds into the cup prizemoney.
“The club will sit down over the next few weeks to gauge what we can do as far as prizemoney for next year’s cup.”
Crowd numbers were up slightly on last year’s figures, according to Donnelly, who had yet to tally gate takings.