PIKE, ROYAL TORONADO TAKE OUT THE PINJARRA CUP

By Graham Potter | Sunday, March 22, 2026

Willie Pike was back in Western Australia on Sunday, after riding at Caulfield on Saturday, and it was pretty much quickly back to business as usual with Pike partnering the Grant and Alana Williams trained Royal Toronado to victory in the $150 000 Pinjarra Cup.

The five-year-old son of Toronado jumped as the race favourite at a starting price of $3.20 … a generous price considering that he was a last start winner and the next runner in the betting (Arcadia Park) was all the way out at $6.50 … and it tuned out to be an easy watch for the followers of the favourite who duly saluted with 2.55 lengths in hand.

Royal Toronado was on an eight day back-up following his win at Ascot last week over 1800. In that race, Pike had Royal Toronado racing five lengths back, just worse than midfield all the way to the home turn. Then, when looking to make his run early in the home straight, Royal Toronado was inconvenienced in-between runners before getting into clear galloping room and being able to start going through his gears.

From there it was a slogging run, but Royal Toronado did advance to join a line of runners spread across the track at the 100m mark, and he sustained that effort to get up and claim the win … but only in the last stride and only by the bob of a head.

It was a good training effort though as the Williams team had asked Royal Toronado to go from 1200m first-up to 1800m second-up … and the training performance got even better here when Grant and Alana Williams then asked Royal Toronado to back-up at Pinjarra after that Ascot win … over 2300m.

This time, Pike made sure little was left to chance.

While the first half of the face followed the same trend as his previous win … Pike again had Royal Toronado five to six lengths back in midfield for the first half of the race, he quickly rallied his mount approaching the home turn with the clear intent of being right in the firing line on straightening … and he succeeded in doing that, making sure that there would be no traffic problems and that Royal Toronado would not be giving any of his rivals a big start in the home straight.

Four wide and unleashing, Royal Toronado hit the front with 200m left to run and quickly settled the issue by pulling right away from all challengers to win in style.
Silver Eye ($11) and Rocking Society ($12) finished second and third respectively.