A healthy crowd were treated to a entertaining evening of harness racing at the Parkes track on Sunday night, with Bathurst's Amanda Turnbull training three winners while Oberon concession driver Justin Reynolds drove a huge roughie home.
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The meeting kicked off with the Clarinda Park IT Pace, with Grenfell trainer Mark Hewitt expertly piloting Maudies Delight ($2.10) to victory over Bradness Abuela ($2.90 place) and the fast finishing Caribbean Pat ($3.80 place).
Starting from the inside of the front row, Hewitt sat comfortably one back with cover until peeling out in the straight off the shoulder of Bradness Abuela - giving the mare a second win in 15 promising starts this season.
Another Hewitt horse was in the thick of the action in the most exciting race of the night, the TAB Odds and Evens Pace, with Mighty Joe ($2.40 place) running second to rank outsider Jack Rocks, who won at the huge odds of $61.
Reynolds, on the reins for father David, produced a ride belying his youthful age as he kicked up on the inside and held the lead for the entirety of the race, giving Reynolds his 45th win in the saddle.
Joes Redemption backers would be tearing their hair out as the well fancied favourite copped a big check in running while another heavily support runner, Meraviglia ($1.30 place) loomed large but just could not reel in the roughie.
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Bathurst trainer Steve Jones took out the feature event of the night, a heat for the Club Dubbo Golden Gig with Why Not Surf ($2.60) patiently stalking the leaders before powering home out wide with Parkes' Brett Hutchings aboard.
Energised ($1.60 pre-race to win) made it two straight flops for favourite backers when the filly galloped at the start, eventually finishing 28.10 metres last.
Cobbity Castle ($3.30) and Twisted Mistress ($8 place) filled out the minor placings, with the latter - trained by Cowra's Shannon Rye - producing a very brave run leading into the headwind at good odds.
The first of Turnbull's three winners came in the Parkes Leagues Club Pace with Balducci, before Classical Music and Hold My Halo won the Col Fletcher Ford Maiden Pace and Terry Brother Maiden Pace respectively.
All three runners completely dominated their opposition to win by big margins, and with Turnbull in superlative form of late, her runners are worth a ticket on name alone.
Turnbull (41 points) sits second in the Cunningham's IGA Leading Trainer standings behind Steve Turnbull (50 points), with Malcolm Hutchings leading the Byrne Clothing Leading Local Trainer with 21 points ahead of Stan Townsend on 13.
Next Sunday evening Dubbo will host a meeting with three feature races.
