Berry adds Doncaster Mile to feature haul

Saturday 20 April 2013, 6:04pm

Tommy Berry's heady autumn carnival continued at Randwick on Saturday when he added the prestigious Doncaster Mile to his Group One haul.

The young rider was the toast of Rosehill two weeks ago when he captured the Golden Slipper aboard the Gai Waterhouse-trained Overreach.

On Saturday he was again in the feature race winners' stall with his stunning Doncaster triumph on Sacred Falls for premier trainer Chris Waller.

Berry is still absorbing the significance of those achievements, as well as the honour of being courted by the city's leading trainer for rides in the best races.

"It hasn't sunk in. To do all this in one season is quite unbelievable," Berry said.

"Chris Waller has obviously recognised that I'm having a good run because I don't get a heap of rides from him but today he has put me on two Group One rides."

But Berry's world was very nearly turned upside down on Friday.

His mother Julie was injured in a stable accident while working for Warwick Farm trainer David Vandyke.

She suffered a fractured sternum and three fractured ribs but it could have been much worse.

"It was an accident at the stables in the heavy rain. But she's tough so she'll come through it fine," Vandyke said.

Berry's Doncaster victory would have provided the perfect tonic for his mother as she watched from her hospital bed.

He also won a support race aboard Eminent Domain while his twin brother and fellow jockey Nathan won the Listed Keith Mackay Quality on Everage.

Vandyke also came to the party, producing Keith's Legacy to win the final race on the program before revealing the gelding was Julie Berry's favourite galloper.

"It is fitting her son has won the Doncaster today and now her favourite horse has won as well," Vandyke said.

Doncaster day was Tommy Berry's second last Saturday riding in Sydney before he heads overseas.

Immediately following the Sydney Cup meeting next weekend he will fly to Hong Kong where he has a contract for the remainder of their season.

Berry already has six rides confirmed for the Sha Tin meeting on Sunday week.

– AAP

Latest News

Prime Thoroughbreds - We have a Host of Leaders in our Team

Tuesday, 29 June 2021

Prime Thor­ough­bred’s cur­rent rac­ing team is putt­ing to­gether quite a re­cord. We have 22 hors­es that have raced in our team at pre­sent. Six­teen of th­ese are win­n­ers in­clud­ing the Stakes win­n­ing trio Ru­bisa­ki, Fituese and Xtreme­time with Miss Di­vine Em and Miss In Charge run­n­ing 4th in Stakes races. This sees a stakes win­n­er to win­n­er ra­tio of 18.75% with a stake’s per­formed to win­n­er ra­tio of 31.25%. Th­ese are ex­cep­tio­n­al fig­ures.   More »

Freedmans land maiden Group One win

Saturday, 27 February 2021

Un­der-rat­ed fil­ly For­bid­den Love has emerged as an au­tumn car­ni­val smokey with a bril­liant per­for­mance to win the Sur­round Stakes at Rand­wick.  More »

Capriccio completes Damian Lane treble

Saturday, 27 February 2021

In a big day for coun­try-trained hors­es, War­r­nam­bool fil­ly Capric­cio has tak­en out the In­glis Dash for Daniel Bow­man.  More »

More news headlines »