It was the battle of the local horses in Friday’s Mount Gambier Scott Group of Companies Gold Cup, with a young challenger denying a threepeat win for his fellow Blue Lake city competitor.
Thrill Kill ridden by Margaret “Maggie” Collett and trained by Peter Hardacre won the Gold Cup much to the delight of the crowd.
Thrill Kill was one of 11 contenders vying for his share of the $70,000 race prize pool with almost $250,000 in prize money won over the course of the day.
Local horse Clever Man was a fan favourite as he was looking to win his third consecutive cup this year, but was ridden to sixth by jockey Jessica Eaton.
The suspense built as several of the runners including the future winner were backed out of their stalls prior to the action getting under way.
It was a battle between locally trained Red Patrol and Thrill Kill over the course of the 2050 metre heat, with the latter overtaking Red Patrol and runner up Ballarat’s Khoekhoe at the final corner to take the lead and claim victory.
Mount Gambier Racing Club president Peter George congratulated Mr Hardacre, the team and Ms Collett on her “wonderful ride”.
“It was a great day and the track was entered beautifully thanks to Dave Shepherdson and his crew. All horses raced accordingly, you had horses winning on the fence, horses coming from behind to win.
“The cup was a spectacular race. There were some pretty good horses in that cup, Clever Man unfortunately did not get the three-peat.
“I am proud of Mount Gambier, thank you very much for supporting us and we would love to see this grow like we did the Calcutta.”
Scott Group of Companies’ Scott Winser presented the cup to Thrill Kill owner Mark Thompson.
“On behalf of the Scott Group of Companies I would like to thank everyone that has come out here today. It is an amazing day, an amazing race and it is really a credit to everyone that helps put this event together for Mount Gambier to enjoy,” he said.
Mr Thompson described the win as “a dream come true”.
“I would like to especially thank the committee for putting on such a wonderful day and of course the trainer Peter Hardacre who has had to do the whole journey with us,” Mr Thompson said.
“I would like to thank Maggie, you are a superstar. What a race, you just nailed it and I cannot thank you enough.
“It is a great story here with all Mount Gambier people, Thrill Kill himself is a second generation Mount Gambier child, he was bred, born and brought up here so it is a great local story.”
It was a homecoming of sorts for Mount Gambier man Mr Hardacre, who now lives in Murray Bridge.
“It is great to come back and I want to keep supporting the Mount Gambier Racing Club, this is where I first started my training journey 10 years ago so I love to be back and it is great to see the track in such good order now,” he said.
“Things are starting to look up again, we have a beautiful day here, we have a great crowd out. Hopefully people can keep supporting the club and keep going further and get it back to the good old days of Mount Gambier racing.”
