THE sun was shining, the birds were chirping and punters were flocking to the Parkes Jockey Club from all over NSW for the club's premier race day: The Parkes Services Club Parkes Gold Cup.
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President Mark Ross was a relieved man when the weather gods smiled down on the club; with the day previously an utterly freezing and windy day.
"I was very impressed with the crowd; we had a bad day weather-wise on Saturday but when the sun came out this morning I was very happy," said Ross.
"It was a very good day of racing and there have been some really happy people," he said after the end of the meeting.
In a little under a month punters will be back to the track for the Parkes Picnics meeting, and Ross is excited about the year ahead.
"Next will be the time-honoured picnics meeting for the 'Back to Parkes' day, and we are expecting a large crowd.
"Then it'll be our non-TAB meeting in August that will coincide with the Parkes Show - it's a great outing and there will be free entry for all the patrons," Ross said.
With Hit The Target and Patrick May taking out the feature events, and plenty of action keeping the clerks busy, there was still plenty in the other six races to keep the punters engaged,
Canberra's Rob Potter, who trained Kirkton ($4) to victory in the last race of the day, the Telescope Tyres and Batteries BM58, was very pleased to cap off the day with a win.
"He's a lovely horse...he has a huge ability and we are really excited about his future," he told Sky Racing after the victory, which was his second for the day.
Not only did the win secure him a double, it also saw jockey Damon Budler snag a treble - a remarkable performance with plenty of talented hoops jostling for space in the jockey room on Sunday.
Potter was stoked for his rider, who won on Kirkton, Nobody's Puppet and another Potter runner, Shecago.
"Damon was excellent today, he rode tremondously on all his winners and I'm really happy for him - he's been improving out of sight recently," said Potter.
The most exciting race of the day, the Coachman Punters Club Maiden, saw a blanket finish of five horses try to get their noses in front at the post.
Out Now ($23) managed to take it out by a long neck ahead of the short-priced favourite Maternal Gift ($1.40f), who was a tragedy beaten.
Reach for Joy ($91), Just Ace ($101) and Gorgeous Am I ($16) were also in the finish; and the huge price of the minors saw the first four pay a whopping $9,724.70 on the Victorian tote.
Parkes trainer Sharon Jeffries couldn't snag a win on her home track, but was very pleased with the powerful finish of Club Supreme ($71); who finished fourth in race 5.
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