Latest news with #ex-Sydney
News.com.au
04-05-2025
- Sport
- News.com.au
Trainer Matt Dunn was surprised when Lubrication upset the big guns to win the $1m The Archer slot race in Rockhampton
Trainer Matt Dunn admitted even he was surprised when his 'Class 3' gelding Lubrication upset the big guns to land the $565,000 winner's cheque with a convincing victory in the $1 million The Archer slot race in Rockhampton on Sunday. With jockey Jake Bayliss on board, Lubrication ($18) came from a fair way back to beat a batch of classy southern raiders, including Bjorn Baker's star pair Sandpaper and Iowna Merc, to finish ahead of the Tony Gollan-trained Comrade Rosa ($11) and Transatlantic ($5) in the 1300m race. 'He's racing better now than he ever has in his life,' Murwillumbah trainer Dunn said after the upset victory for slot holder Max Whitby, the ex-Sydney racing identity who now lives on the Gold Coast. 'It was a proper win. To be honest I'm a little bit surprised, in a happy way. 'It was very exciting, unexpected and one of those thrills that come up every now and then.' The bookmakers clearly didn't rate five-year-old Lubrication, which was paying up to $40 early last week, following his last-start third in a Class 3 1400m race at Eagle Farm on April 19. 'Even when he got beat the other day (at Eagle Farm), Max was at the races and he said 'I want him for my slot' and I said 'sweet, no worries',' Dunn said. 'He's a Class 3 horse but I'm happy to go to a set weights plus penalties race, and take them on for that sort of money.' Lubrication wins the Archer at double figure odds for @mattydunnracing with @jakebayliss94 in the saddle! ðŸ'� Whitby Bloodstock nails it with their slot runner! ðŸ'° — SKY Racing (@SkyRacingAU) May 4, 2025 Dunn was too busy preparing his horses for the Queensland Winter Carnival to be in Rockhampton but he joked his stable representative Wayne Wheatley would do the hard celebrating for him. 'I would've loved to have gone but I've just got too much on here. Not too many celebrations but I'm sure my man up there (Wheatley) will be celebrating hard,' Dunn said. 'The horse is coming home at 6.30am and he's on an 8am flight so I hope they both make it.' Three-time Group 1 winner Bayliss was held up at various stages throughout the race but when a split opened up, Lubrication surged to the line and never looked like losing it from there. Both Dunn and Whitby are the major owners of Lubrication, who was bought for $400,000 at the 2021 Inglis Australian Easter Yearling Sale. Dunn had every intention of spelling Lubrication but he might be having second thoughts given the gelding is in 'career-best form'. 'He's got a few miles under his belt,' Dunn said. 'The idea was to give him a break but he's racing so well and he looks so good. 'He beat some decent horses there and beat them fair and square. 'Who knows where he ends up? Maybe races like the Glasshouse Handicap (over 1400m on the Sunshine Coast on July 5). 'It depends what they do with him regarding his rating. It's always difficult to stick horses in the paddock when they're racing in career-best form.' Meanwhile, Rob Heathcote has confirmed that 25-time Group 1 winning rider Tim Clark will partner Rothfire in the $1.5 million Doomben 10,000 (1200m) major on May 17. The 2020 JJ Atkins winner Rothfire will push on to the Doomben 10,000 after an impressive fourth in Saturday's Group 2 Victory Stakes at Eagle Farm in his first race since late December when he finished fourth in The Buffering, won by Transatlantic.
Daily Mail
21-04-2025
- Sport
- Daily Mail
Broadcaster tears into Damien Hardwick after he launched a blistering attack on Victorian Premier over her criticism of Richmond and the AFL
Noah Balta is set to learn his fate on Tuesday after he pleaded guilty to a charge of assault occasioning actual bodily harm relating to an incident that took place in December 2024. This weekend, the Richmond defender, 25, returned to play for the Tigers during their victory against Gold Coast, after having served a four-match ban handed to him in the off-season. But the decision to bring him back into the fold, three days before Balta is due to appear in court for sentencing, has been condemned by some from inside the footy world and the wider community. Even Allan had weighed in on the matter, ripping into the footy club and AFL powerbrokers, by questioning what message Richmond were sending out by allowing Balta to return before he was sentenced. Hardwick, who had coached the 25-year-old for six seasons during his spell at Punt Road, clapped back at the Premier on Saturday afternoon, calling her comments a 'mockery' before telling Allan to keep her nose out of other people's business. On Monday night, Wilson issued an address to Hardwick, ripping into the premiership-winning, claiming he was 'wrong' to call out the Premier. "When you're going to stick your nose into issues outside of footy, get your facts right." Caroline Wilson thinks Damien Hardwick's comments were out of line on Saturday night 👉 — 7AFL (@7AFL) April 21, 2025 'Damien, politics aside, you were out of line on Saturday night,' Wilson said sternly on The Agenda Setters. 'Just like you were when you bagged the curator at Richmond's beloved MCG. And just like you were when you ridiculed John Longmire's gameplan and later had to apologise. And when you turned on Marvel Stadium, which weirdly had a detrimental effect for two or three seasons on Richmond's win-loss ratio there.' Back in 2020, Hardwick was forced to apologise to the ex-Sydney boss Longmire after he blasted the Swan's tactics. He had also slammed the crowd at the Marvel Stadium back in 2021, claiming that he 'hated' travelling to the docklands stadium instead of playing at the MCG. 'But even Gold Coast officials, some of them, were perplexed when you had a crack at Jacinta Allan, the Victorian Premier, over her comments about Noah Balta,' Wilson added. 'And you were wrong.' She continued: 'I would have thought law and order was in the remit of every State Premier, particularly one whose government has committed $15million to the Punt Road rebuild, in the name of community. 'Damien, so many people outside of footy were critical of the Balta selection and the Premier was simply answering a question.' Wilson then shot a barb back at Hardwick, twisting the former Tigers coach's comments back at him. 'So when are you going to "stick your nose into" issues outside of footy and get your facts right.' 'I agree with you,' Craig Hutchison added. 'His comments were tone-deaf and he got involved in something he didn't need to do.' Speaking on Saturday, Hardwick told reporters: 'We've got a premier who put her nose in someone else's business. 'She should just concentrate on getting the state running well. 'It's an absolute mockery of her making comments in regard to that.' He is not the only person to hit out at the Premier for her comments, in which she described Balta's alleged aggression on 27-year-old Thomas Washbrook as 'sickening'. 'I've never seen as many machete-carrying, weapon-bearing people out on bail just attacking us left right and centre,' footy great David King said on SEN, speaking on Allan's comments, before implying that she should 'read the room'. 'We've got half the state getting broken into at the moment. The 25-year-old defender (pictured left, with coach Adem Yze) had been given the green light to return by the AFL and his footy club after serving his ban 'And she's decided to pick on the Noah Balta situation. I think she's got more on her hands. Control the controllables… I just think that's bizarre. 'What the hell are you doing raring your head up on this?' Following the expiration of his four-match suspension, AFL CEO Andrew Dillon had confirmed that the league was 'comfortable' with Balta returning to play. 'We have worked with Richmond and we're comfortable with the suspension and the suspension that Noah has served... we're comfortable with where Richmond landed on that one,' he said. The AFL Player's Association chief Paul Marsh had also stated that Balta had a 'right to play'. But Allan was not comfortable with their stance. 'How does the AFL and the Richmond Football Club answer that question about what's going on here? What sort of message does this send to kids about what's right and what's wrong?' she said, prior to the club's Round 5 defeat by Fremantle. 'I think that's really a question that the AFL and Richmond need to answer,' she added. 'Let's remember the victim here who would no doubt be deeply traumatised by this experience.' Balta, meanwhile, was lauded for his performance during Sunday's 11-point victory against Gold Coast. Yze stated that the footy club will be looking after Balta, who has been training hard over the past three months to redeem himself among his team-mates. 'He's handled it by training hard. He's put his head down, bum up for the last three months and it's a credit to him,' Yze said. 'We'll support him through it, there'll be a bit of anxiety around it and we'll obviously need to look after him this week because there's a bit to that. 'But as we've done as a footy club all along, we work with the AFL, we'll go through the process on Tuesday and just support him as best as we can. 'He has done a mountain of work, extras, supporting our younger players not only to get himself right to play but he's been trying to win back the respect of his footy club. 'He knows he let the club down, he knows he did something wrong, but he's been dealing with that every day and for our boys to support him today and not only to support him, but his performance today was outstanding so it's a credit to him. We're really proud of him.'
Yahoo
13-03-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Roos to go ‘full throttle' on wounded Dogs
North Melbourne coach Alastair Clarkson says the Roos can't afford to underestimate the wounded Western Bulldogs in their season opener on Saturday. The Bulldogs won't have five of their best players, headlined by captain Marcus Bontempelli, who polled four of a possible six Brownlow votes against North last season. But Clarkson says the Roos, who themselves have star forward Nick Larkey racing to mend a corked calf, will need to be on high alert for the battered Bulldogs. 'I pretty much take note of what's going to be out on the park and what was out on the park a couple of weeks ago in Launceston was enough to beat Hawthorn,' he said. 'The Bont played that game but he was done in 10 or 15 minutes and what we do know is they are a very competitive outfit. 'They've had injuries before but they learn how to cope with them. They've had time to figure out what they can do in terms of replacements and give guys opportunity in those spots. 'To be fair, we can't afford to be taking any team lightly, we'll just go full throttle and hopefully it's enough to be competitive against the Dogs.' The Roos won three games last year, all in the second half of the season. They also fumbled two three-quarter-time leads to Collingwood and West Coast as well going down by less than a kick to Melbourne. Clarkson hopes the Roos can improve on what was a poor first half to last season and will use the three-quarter-time score as an indicator of improvement. 'We're looking to compete deeper into games. I think in the first 11 games of the season last year, I think at three-quarter time we weren't really in the contest in any one of those,' he said. 'The second half of the year we were better at competing for longer. We won three of those games – a couple others we could've won but found a way to lose them. 'If you look at the second of the year and said, 'Well, if they won those couple they probably should won then they'd have five in the second half of the year', and that's starting to show evidence we're on the right track. 'We'd like to consolidate on that by really getting deep into games and still being competitive, not having either our fans or anyone else turn the telly off at three-quarter time. 'It's pretty much a key method of how we can judge how we're going this year.' Larkey sat out North Melbourne's match simulation on Thursday morning and will undergo a fitness test on either Friday or the morning of the game on Saturday. Finnbar Maley trained in Larkey's position, while ex-Sydney Swan Jacob Konstanty has also put his hand up to join Finn O'Sullivan as a debutant. '(Larkey) got a corky at training and we didn't want him to train today just to allow that to settle down a little bit,' Clarkson said. 'We're hoping he's going to be good as gold by the weekend, but we can't absolutely stamp it right now until he comes in tomorrow. 'We didn't want to run him today and aggravate that at all. He'll have a run around tomorrow or maybe even Saturday morning. 'It's not ideal but he's had a great summer and that's why we'll give him every chance to play.' O'Sullivan is set to join other top draftees Sam Lalor, Harry Armstrong, Luke Trainor (all Richmond), Josh Dolan (Western Bulldogs), Murphy Reid (Fremantle) and Sam Marshall (Brisbane) in making their debuts. Impressively, Armstrong, Trainor, Dolan, Reid and Marshall all played in the same junior competition growing up — the South Metro Junior Football League.
