Murwillumbah trainer Matthew Dunn has qualified two runners for the $1 million Country Championships final at Royal Randwick on April 6.
It was his first Country Championships back after relinquishing his metropolitan stables in Sydney last year, and the well-respected trainer set a team of five runners for the $150,000 Northern Rivers qualifier at Grafton on Saturday.
Dunn trained the quinella with Tribeca Star ($3.80), ridden by Matthew McGuren, who rode five on the program, holding on for a half-length win from stablemate Rainbow Connection (Ben Looker, $5).
In third and just missing out on second was the David McColm-trained Fairway Choice (Kyle Wilson-Taylor, $4.80), which made it a Murwillumbah trifecta.
Tribeca Star, an impressive Highway Handicap winner at Rosehill Gardens in November, has been racing well in recent times.
Dunn was thrilled to see the four-year-old continue his excellent form at Grafton, heaping praise on his hard-working staff for making the stable’s dream a reality.
“He’s done a wonderful job; he’s been up for a hell of a long time,” Dunn said.
“He’s covered plenty of miles on the highway, that’s for sure; he’s been up and down the coast three times, and it was great to see him do that.
“He’s the horse we set for this race a very long time ago, and to sort of hold him up, the team has done a wonderful job to keep him in such good order for such a long period of time.”
In terms of getting two into the final, Dunn was stoked, especially after the meeting was moved from Lismore to Grafton due to the recent wet weather.
“It’s great to see,” Dunn said.
“Rainbow Connection didn’t probably get as soft a run as Tribeca Star, and to get the two through is exactly what we were looking for, and it’s wonderful.
“When it rained this morning, we were concerned for a number of our runners.
“Unfortunately, Veandechance probably didn’t get the right surface, and Emperor had to go back to the inside, and that didn’t suit, but our horses acquitted themselves well, and as I said, we couldn’t be happier to get two through.”
The Murwillumbah pair will now be set for the $1 million final at Royal Randwick, and Dunn, who trained the winner of the 2020 final with Gracie Belle, has the job of working out their paths to the rich country-restricted final.
“They’ve both had lots of racing, lots of seasoning, they are big strong horses, and it goes a hell of a long way in high-pressure races that Randwick is going to be,” Dunn said.
“Fingers crossed they get through today alright, and we’ll work out a plan to get from six weeks to the final.
“They’ll probably both have to have another run in between, but we’ll work that out in the next few days and go forward to that.”
It’s not over for Dunn’s team, who will almost certainly contest the Northern Wild Card qualifier at Scone on Friday, March 22.
For now, Country Championships action heads to Albury on Sunday, and for more on the Southern District’s heat, click here.
