Going one better in 2026, the Becky Byrne-trained Dream Inherit won Saturday’s Tumut Mile (1600m).
In 2025, the Canberra galloper had Glenn Cahill in the saddle and went close, narrowly going down to Tumut specialist, Gwennybegg (Sinead Peebles), trained by Snowy Mountains trainer, Georgie Boucher.
A year later, Dream Inherit went around as a drifting $14 chance but still won the feature race for connections, leading all the way for Byrne and returning jockey Damon Budler.
Given a heads-up ride by the South African, who was only four rides into his return following a nine-month injury layup, Budler took the seven-year-old Kuroshio mare to the front from gate nine and made every post a winner as the pair cruised to a 2.28 length victory.
“That’s her racing pattern. She gets out and runs,” Budler told Country Punter.
“Becky has her horses in good condition and very fit. Plus, I’ve done a bit of work on her, especially last week, and she gave me every indication she was in for a good run today.”
A noted leader’s track, the tight-turning Tumut racecourse had been playing fairly on Saturday, with winners coming from everywhere.
Despite this, there was no catching Dream Inherit in the feature race.
“I went into the race with a very positive outlook about the horse, the condition she’s in, and the type of track Tumut is,” Budler said.
“You’ve got to give everything a positive ride there, and they might have been coming from midfield and a little bit worse today, but going forward and being positive is the way to ride the track and the way she (Dream Inherit) likes to race and that worked for us.”
Budler was thrilled for Byrne and connections, with the in-form stable landing wins late last year at Bombala, Adaminaby, and Cooma, before their feature-race win at Tumut.
“For the smaller stables, this is their bread and butter, and I’m sure Becky will be absolutely over the moon about winning this race,” Budler said.
“Plus, the small stables work just as hard as the big ones, if not harder, and they deserve the success.”
For Budler, the talented jockey had been out with a shoulder injury, but is now fighting fit, and followed up his Tumut win with a victory at Cowra on Sunday.
Riding for Canberra trainer Gratz Vella, Budler gave Wonderful Mistake a great ride as the pair got home to win the 1200m Benchmark 58 Handicap.
“In the Tumut Mile, that was only my fourth ride back, and I’m happy enough to win a Tab 2 race, and hopefully I can push on to some bigger and better results.”
