The Country Cup king, Michael Mulholland, put the exclamation mark on a strong end to 2025 and an even better start to 2026, winning Sunday’s Cowra Cup.
The Dubbo stable finished 2025 with a flurry of victories as the likes of Shadow Dane (Coonabarabran and Wellington), Final Impact (Dubbo), Wing Nut (Cowra), Elite Power (Warren), and Talkachino (Tamworth) all greeted the judge first.
Kicking off 2026 with a bang, it was Talkachino that won a 1600m Benchmark 58 Handicap at Orange on January 6, and the 7YO I’m All The Talk gelding would start one of the favourites in Sunday’s $36,000 Cowra Cup (1700m).
Upstaging his stablemate was Shadow Dane ($11), which was ridden quietly by apprentice Jacob Stiff.
The 6YO Rebel Dane gelding, landing the sixth win of his career, stormed home strongly to defeat the Michael Travers-trained pair of Mathrin (Adrian Layt, $31) and Dynamic One (Molly Bourke, $8), who rounded out the top three in the Breakout River Meats Cowra Cup.
“I was actually more confident in Talkachino,” Mulholland laughed when interviewed by Country Punter.
“He’s been working and racing really well, but it came down to whether they got bottled up or if they got a free run at them, and Shadow Dane got that good run.
“I was sitting over there, and I was saying ‘get going, Jake, get going, Jake’, as they were travelling; it was good to see him get home to win.”
Known for his conquests of Country Cups all throughout the Western and Central Districts with the likes of Steamin’, Sea Change, Cheptagai, and Foodie King, Mulholland admitted he had endured a lean run in Country Cups over the past 12 months.
“I just hadn’t had the right horses, and I’ve been in a rebuilding stage,” Mulholland said.
“Some have been going through the grades, and some have not quite been good enough, but these two are horses we can target those races with.
“They’ll both go for a bit of a breather now and come back, and we’ll start tackling all these cups again.
“Plus, we have a few at the breakers and three or four at the farm ready to come in; I’ll be back up to 18 really quickly.”
It was a big day at Cowra, with the second of the features, the Cowra Lamb Cowra Japan Cup (1200m), won impressively by the Gary Nickson-trained Zale.
Ridden by Molly Bourke, the 5YO Denman gelding won the sixth race of his career, putting 2.5 lengths on a good field of sprinters.
A good crowd was on course, too, with the sun shining on Cowra Jockey Club’s biggest day of the year.
