Triple crown for Sinclair at Talmoi

The six-year-old gelding raced home a few lengths in front of the Nathan Sinclair-trained Playa, and last year’s Cup winner, Chart, trained by Campbell Roberts.

Adding to the accolade, a new track record of 1:23:08 was set.

Race club president, Andrew Crowe, said the record was broken the year before at 1:23:30 but before that the honour stood since the 90s, where local horse Seabas set a time of about 1:25.

“The track must have been in pretty good order and the horse too,” Crowe said.

Tapakeg joins Mulgate (1961) and Gefilte (1988) as only the third horse in 85 years to win all three cups of bush racing’s ‘Golden Triangle’ at Moree, Mallawa and Talmoi picnic races.

“Tapakeg was the favourite and a lot of people backed him,” Crowe said.

“It’s a pretty special occasion,” he said.

Despite the significant event, Sinclair was still modest about the win.

“I’m very pleased with the horse and it’s pleasing he performed well while the owners were here to see it,” Sinclair said.

“Who knows when it might happen again; it could be next year, or it could be in 20 years,” he said.

Owners Dominic and Karen Neate were impressed with the win.

“It was very unexpected,” Dominic said.

“He’s been a frustrating horse up until now so it’s good to see him win, and to create history is even better,” he said.

The Neates experienced a rare double win with another of their horses, Jo Jo Girl, running first in race five at Randwick on Saturday. 

Sinclair said he had only been training Tapakeg for four starts in which time he’s had some pleasing results.

“He used to race in Sydney and the Gold Coast before they brought him out here,” he said.

“Tapakeg started off in about fourth place before he started to move up and it looked like he was going to go out to the corner, but an opening came up along the inside and he came home with a strong finish,” Sinclair said.

“He was carrying 72 kilos which was a lot of weight; about 10kg more than some of the other horses, so it was a good effort,” he said.

Sinclair had success with Dungiven in race three, also making his success rate three from three at the local picnics.

Rasanka raced home to win Sinclair race four.

Both times Tim Phillips was on board helping the pair pick up the trainer’s and jockey’s bonuses on the day.

Crowe said about 1000 racegoers attended the historic event.

“We were very pleased with the event. There was good weather and everyone had a good day,” he said.

“It’s a good community fixture on the calendar and people from all walks of life come, which is what we want,” he said.

Presentations were also made to thank a number of supporters including Geoff and Geraldene Farrar, Jodie Crowe, Ali Hunter, Gail Appleby, Amara Doyle, Ron Turton and the stewards from Tamworth.

“We appreciate the efforts of all these people over the years. Our community has got a lot of people quietly putting in an effort,” Crowe said.