RACING
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After nine attempts in provincial and country cups, Kembla-trained gelding World Wide finally broke through for a win in the Port Macquarie Cup (2000m) on Friday.
The Bede Murray-trained warhorse has ventured all around the state in his 65-start career but had failed to taste cup glory in features from Coffs Harbour to Albury.
That duck was finally broken when premier country jockey Robert Thompson piloted the eight-year-old to a memorable victory on the mid-North Coast.
"He has been in a few and ran second in the Canberra Cup and the Wagga Cup. He has missed a few but finally he has won that one, which is good," Murray said. "It was a great run. The horse is eight years old now and it is nice to see him being able to hold his form and win a race of that calibre."
Murray is expected to run World Wide on an eight-day back-up this Saturday in the Listed Tattersall's Club Cup (2400m) at Randwick.
"He has come through it very well and he is a 99 per cent chance of running on Saturday," the trainer said.
"It will be his first try ever over the mile and a half, but I think he will handle that OK. We are getting a lot of rain so it looks like it might be run on a heavy track, which suits him fine."
Murray unveiled the first of his two-year-old crop last weekend at Randwick and will again feature in this week’s race for juveniles.
Ideal Express ran a gritty fourth last weekend after being posted wide while War Prodigy finished at the rear of the field.
Swift Reply will run this weekend.
‘‘[Ideal Express] had a tough run and he will only be an improved horse for that. He has gone to the paddock now. I expect Swift Reply to run very well,’’ Murray said.
Kembla Grange waits
Kembla Grange’s hopes of securing the state’s new quarantine centre are up in the air with a report on potential locations expected from Racing NSW as early as this week.
The centre would provide a base for international horses before they begin their campaign in Sydney’s autumn carnival, The Championships.
Kembla Grange has long been touted as a possible venue for the hub but a suitable plot is yet to be announced.
Sites around the Illawarra Turf Club have been inspected as potential location’s for the elite centre, alongside properties at other provincial tracks and around Sydney.
Some money has already been put aside for the venue, as part of the $10 million in funding for The Championships.
Illawarra Turf Club chairman Barry Vandenbergh said they expected to know more by the end of the week.
‘‘The facilities that were looked at around at Kembla Grange were looked at in a positive light and there are other sites available. We are just waiting to see which way they go,’’ he said.
The facility would work similar to Victoria’s International Quarantine Centre at Werribee where all of the spring carnival’s foreign hopes have spent the past few months preparing.
Racing NSW chairman Paul Messara had said more than six weeks ago while visiting the Illawarra, he had hoped to solve the state’s lack of a similar facility ‘sooner rather than later’, as currently visiting horses must travel through Werribee.
It was hoped the hub would be open in time for next year’s edition of The Championships.
Meanwhile, Kembla will host its only twilight meeting of the summer this Friday.
With daylight savings now active, racing will jump at 2.48pm this week before rounding up at 6.37pm.
ITC Racing Manager Michael Craig said the meet was aimed at bringing punters to the track after work and was free-of-charge.