CROSS-BORDER PRIDE AND JOY

Sydney trainer bags double at home, but the highlight is G3 win in Caulfield with In Flight

- Michael Lee

Leading Sydney trainer Joseph Pride enjoyed a good day at not one, but two offices in Australia on July 12.

The 2024-25 Australian horse racing season may be drawing to an end with only around two weeks remaining, but the Warwick Farm handler was not letting up on his quest for more winners to pad up his successful campaign, even across borders.

At home in Randwick, he struck a race-to-race double with two from his team of four runners—King's Secret ($22) in a Benchmark 72 handicap (1100m) followed by Aberlour ($71) in a Benchmark 78 handicap (1,800m), both with A$160,000 (S$135,000) purses—to tie with Ciaron Maher on the Sydney metropolitan trainer's premiership on 45 winners, but still staying in fifth place on a count-back for seconds.

In racing, trainers never split their winners, be it in a lowly Class 1 at Wagga or a Group 1 in Flemington, and Pride is no different.

However, if his geographical location on that day was anything to go by, a greater sense of "Pride and joy" must have been felt 700km away from home—Caulfield.