Wilde – who trained five winners at his home town’s three-day carnival earlier this month, including Gold Medals to Brierly and Grand Annual Steeplechase victories – said inquiries from prospective owners had increased.

“We’ve been very busy since the carnival,” Wilde said. “We purchased three yearlings from New Zealand and five at the Inglis Premier Yearling sale and all shares have gone. We got a few shares left in a couple of yearlings from the VOBIS Gold Sale.

“One of the funniest things is a bloke from overseas phoned up and wants us to train his horse, which was formerly trained in Brisbane.

“A lot of the credit to our success goes back to our staff they all do great jobs.”

The Wilde juggernaut continued at Casterton on Sunday, with the stable producing Tommy Standup to win the final race on the program.

THE hard-working Casterton Racing Club committee is leaving no stone unturned as it makes inroads to ensure its race meetings continue to grow and prosper.

More than 2400 people attended Casterton’s Cup meeting on Sunday, an increase of more than 150 people on last year’s numbers, which was surprising due to inclement weather.

President Bruce Miller is excited with the direction the club is heading.

“Despite the bad weather we were delighted with the crowd numbers,” Miller said.

“It was a shame about the weather, but I think everyone had a good day. We were confident of good crowd numbers after we pre-sold lots of tickets.”

Casterton Racing Club was a finalist in the club of the year award at last year’s Country Racing Victoria Awards. Miller is hoping it receives another nomination for the prestigious prize later this year.

“We’ve got a great committee who put in lots of time and effort to ensure the club is successful,” he said.

“We’ve got three meetings this year, but we’ve already been told we’ll have four meetings next season. That’s a great reward for the hard work. We’ve got some major changes on the drawing board and one of those is to make the ladies jockeys room bigger. We hope to have all the internal tracks covered with bitumen before next year’s cup meeting, and we’ll be changing the wash down bays for the horses to the middle of the parade ring out the back.”

Casterton races again on June 30.

THREE runs in nine days had little impact on Tough Vic, according to Koroit trainer James McNamara. The four-year-old backed up McNamara’s comments winning a restricted race at Casterton on Sunday.

“Tough Vic just seems to thrive on racing,” McNamara said following the victory.

“He’s one tough horse who would eat a house. We’ve only had him since last August. My son Brad encouraged me to pay the $7000 for him at a mixed thoroughbred sale.

"Tough Vic has already been a good buy, and we still haven’t go to the bottom of him. There’s a lot more improvement in him.”

Tough Vic earnt $11,000 in prizemoney for his connections with his win at Casterton.

JUMPS jockey Brad McLean played down the winning performance of Cougar Express in a restricted hurdle at Casterton on Sunday.

Cougar Express beat Flying Casino and Nimbostratus to win the 3480 metre race. The victory follows up the win of Cougar Express, who is trained by his brother Jarrod, in a maiden hurdle at Warrnambool on May 1.

“I really like Cougar Express but I’m not getting carried away at this stage,” McLean said. “I think Jarrod will just take him along slowly. He’s a nice horse and with time may develop into nice jumper.”

The former Western Australian galloper won the 2016 Bunbury and Kalgoorlie cups before joining the McLean stable just over a year ago.

WARRNAMBOOL trainer Aaron Purcell was upbeat with the run of Guizot at Flemington on Saturday.

The Irish-bred galloper ran third behind Éclair Calling in the 1600 metre race.

“Guizot finished the race off strongly,” Purcell said.

“I think he was unlucky. He’s a nice type of horse who looks to have a good future. His next run should be in the Swan Hill Cup on June 10.”

Guizot has won three of his 25 starts.

VETERAN Mount Gambier trainer Michael O’Leary celebrated his 76th birthday by leading his galloper Emil into the winners stall at Casterton on Sunday.

“It’s great to train a winner on my birthday. I’ve been lucky to have trained plenty of winners at Casterton over the years, including six cup winners, so it’s always been one of my favourite tracks.”

AUSTRALIA’S greatest female trainer, Gai Waterhouse, has set many records during her career and added another couple of interesting pieces for the trivia buffs at Casterton on Sunday.

Waterhouse, who was not on track for the Casterton Cup meeting, had her first two runners at the picturesque racecourse and both were in jumping races.

The well-backed Multitude ran second in a maiden hurdle, while her tough jumper Valediction lost his jockey in an action-packed steeplechase.