QUEENSLAND COUNTRY RACING: STAMFORD – THE QUICK WRAP (JULY 3, 2021)

By Graham Potter | Monday, July 5, 2021

The Stamford Cup, which headlined the Stamford Race Club meeting on Saturday (July 3), was won by the Tania Perry trained Charlie Cat with Dan Ballard doing the honours in the saddle.

The Julia Creek based trainer loaded the dice for the day’s feature, sending out three of the eight runners, all of them roundly unwanted in the betting.

Wicked Wiki (Ric McMahon) was at $14, Charlie Cat was a $17 chance with his price being half that of Perry’s other runner Snippy Strategic ($34) … and it was Charlie Cat who prevailed to claim the Cup on a 0.30 length margin over the Steven Royes trained Grand Symphony ($5).

The $2 favourite Duke’s County (Denise Ballard – Keith Ballard) finished third, 1.30 lengths behind the winner.

Charlie Cat, a ten-year-old, is a veteran of seventy-two starts and this, his fourteenth career win, took his prize-money earnings over the quarter of a million mark.

For his part, Grand Symphony once again underlined his consistency which has seen him finish outside of the first four only once in the nineteen starts he has had for the Steven Royes stable, while the same recommendation can be made for Duke’s County, who has returned three wins, a second and a third placing from his five starts since joining the Denise Ballard stable.

Other winners on the day were Music Award (Henry Forster – Tim Brummell), who was winning for the second time in a row, Brahminy (Kerry Krogh – Jason Babarovitch), who shed his Maiden ticket at his twenty-fifth start, Cato (George Tipping – Ric McMahon), who has won three of his five starts for Tipping and who was the only favourite, at $1.90, to win on the day … and We’ll Beat It (Denise Ballard – Dan Ballard), who won first-up and on debut for the Ballard yard,

Dan Ballard’s rode a race-to race double on the day, the Cup winner Charlie Cat and We’ll Beat It, when taking out the last two races on the card.