QUEENSLAND COUNTRY RACING: OAK PARK – THE QUICK WRAP (JULY 2 and JULY 3, 2021)

By Graham Potter | Monday, July 5, 2021

Oak Park Race Club traditionally hosts a double header meeting once a year in the first week of July.

This year those two meetings took place on Friday July 2 and Saturday July 3, with ten races being decided over the two days.

Georgetown based trainer Athol Ryan saddled three winners out of four starters over the weekend with Do It For Viv (in his first run for the stable), Red Denaro (who claimed his third career win) and Macipenko (who, like Do It For Viv, won first time out for the Ryan stable after transferring from trainer Michael Costa) all saluting.

Janel Ryan was the only other trainer to send out more than one winner scoring on each day with Cadence (who was making it back-to-back wins after a previous win at Atherton) on day one, and Witterick (who has now won three out of his last four starts) on day two.

The five other trainers who landed a winner each were Jennifer Hatfield (with Spanish Spirit making it a double), Ricky Ludwig (with Tycoon Thunder who remained undefeated in four starts since relocating to the stable), Tanya Perry (with Okanagan Miss (who is now a twelve-time winner), Shryn Royes (with Nitro City who is now a seven-time winner), Steven Royes (with Mackellar’s Voice who has now won three of his last four starts).

In the ‘jockey stakes,’ Lacey Morrison, Stephen Wilson, apprentice Rachel Shred and Amanda Thomson all brought home two winners with Frank Edwards, Jeffrey Felix enjoying one winner piece.

In all, the meeting was supported by sixteen trainers, who sent out sixty-nine runners (with a nice even split of 33 on day one and 36 on day two) with ten jockeys being on hand to do the riding honours.

Punters had a good time of it with eight of the ten favourites winning, including all five on day two, while Okanagan Miss was the only winner to salute at odds of greater than $3,60 … the Tanya Perry trained runner coming in at $13.

‘Till next year!