THE KING OF THE MOUNTAIN - AN OVERVIEW

By Graham Potter | Wednesday, December 28, 2022

The King Of The Mountain, $750 000 race which will have its inaugural running at Toowoomba on December 31, has a huge local interest with no less than nine of the twelve big race runners being supplied by Toowoomba based stables, all of whom will be looking to keep the major share of the prize-money at home.

The final field for the race is made up by the runners selected by twelve slot-holders ... as per The Everest example ... and the Toowoomba runners have been the main flavour of the process with trainers Mark Currie (Je Sius Belle and Chatty Lady), Joshua King (Niccanova and Argyle Lane) , Michael Nolan (Kisukano and Northern Express) and Tony Sears (Steady Ready and Yellow Brick) all having two starters in the race ... while another local set-up, the Rex Lipp and Nick Hahn training partnership also has a runner (Simply Fly) in the race.

Going some way towards helping one of the locals cement the result that Toowoomba is looking for is the fact that the three horses not trained by Toowoomba trainers ... the Tony Gollan trained Mass Destruction, The Shaun Dwyer trained Last Chance and the Toby and Trent trained Alpine Edge ... have all received something akin to a ‘visitor’s draw’ ... barriers 17, 16 and 13 respectively. The current barriers draw includes barrier positions for the five emergency acceptances.

The state’s top jockeys will be riding in the King Of The Mountain with seven out of the current top ten riders on the Brisbane Jockey’s Premiership ladder set to make the trip up the range to be part of Toowoomba’s Turf Club’s big occasion.

Nine out of the twelve jockeys participating in the King Of The Mountain ... Jim Byrne, Martin Harley, Angela Jones, Brodie Loy, Taylor Marshall, Jimmy Orman, Ben Thompson, Boris Thornton and Kyle Wilson-Taylor will be making that trip only after completing their riding engagements at the Doomben metropolitan meeting that afternoon, which features the Group 3 Vo Rogue Plate and the Listed Nudgee Stakes.

Tegan Harrison and Michael Murphy will be the other two riders who will take their place in the King Of The Mountain.

Murphy rides one of the most interesting runners in the race, the Joshua King trained Argyle Lane ... who is a half-brother to the superbly performed Incentivise, last year’s Caulfield Cup winner.

Incentivise, then trained by Steve Tregea, started off his career in Toowoomba. He was a slow learner initially, but then he hit his straps landing six-in-a-row in sensational fashion ... by a combined winning margin of 42 lengths ... before being sold to southern interests.

Joshua King was Incentivises’ work rider before the move, so he knows the breed well and he already has Argyle Lane keeping the family flame alive with the gelding being a winner of five of his seven career starts to date. He will be bidding for a hat trick of wins on Saturday.

There are plenty of other contenders looking to add to their reputations, not least Chatty Lady, the only other last start winner in the race who has won three of her last four starts, and Yellow Brick, who has only tasted defeat once in his five career starts. Yellow Brick will be bidding for his fourth successive win.

And, of course, there are others ready to have their say.

All in all, it is a pretty competitive feature event which will take place in the vibrant New Year’s Eve party atmosphere which is sure to engulf the Toowoomba track in what is expected to be a very special night of racing.

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