MUNCE CHASES MORE WEETWOOD GLORY 37 YEARS AFTER HE WON THE RACE AS A SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD

By Graham Potter | Thursday, September 24, 2026

Chris Munce can put an exclamation mark on his record in the Weetwood Handicap if he and co-trainer Corey Munce can take out the 2026 edition of the tine honoured race with the smart four-year-old chestnut Brave Monarch, who is already a five-time winner (from only eight starts) with $517 500 banked in prize-money.

Munce won the race twice as a jockey, so to put a Weetwood win on the board as a trainer would be an exceptional achievement and add another special chapter to his association with the Toowoomba Turf Club’s signature race-day, bearing in mind that the Munce stable has already won the Toowoomba Cup twice … and the stable have the favourite (Diamond Show) in this year’s Cup. By way of contrast to the Weetwood though, Munce never landed the Toowoomba Cup as a jockey.

Bold Monarch has strong credentials to claim a Weetwood win.

After just failing to find a place on his debut, Bold Monarch put a hat-trick of wins on the board in his next three starts to round off his first preparation oozing potential … a potential he began to realise very quickly in his second preparation when the stable was happy to test the son of Brave Smash in feature race company.

Again, first up, he finished on the fringe of the placings before, again, putting back-to-back wins together … this time, notably in the Listed Daybreak Lover over 1400m (in his first run in Black Type company) … and then, more significantly, in the Group 2 Queensland Guineas over 1600m

He couldn’t quite make it a second career hat-trick when coming up a couple of lengths short in the Group 3 Fred Best, when going back to the1400m in his final start of his last prep, but he had proved a point with his future looking to be particularly bright.

That future starts on Saturday in the Weetwood, a race in which he clearly has the form to be able to come back a winner.

If there is any question mark about his chances, it comes in the statistic which shows that he has yet to salute first-up, and he is resuming in the Weetwood after four month break from race action … but, the chances are his class will be enough to counter any disadvantage in that regard.

A visit to the winners’ enclosure would reflect quite a journey for Chris Munce. His two wins in the Weetwood as a jockey already pointed to his longevity in the game … coming as they did twenty-one years apart.

He first won the race in 1989 as a seventeen-year-old aboard Count Henri and followed up with Poor Judge in 2010.

Now, sixteen years after his last Weetwood win (and all of thirty-seven years after that incredible moment as a seventeen year old), Munce could well rewrite his own personal record in the race which is already so steeped in history.

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