Marquand makes most of Sydney opportunity

Saturday 11 January 2020, 5:01pm

The absence of Sydney's top jockeys has paved the way for emerging Englishman Tom Marquand to play a starring role at Randwick, booting home a double for the man who lured him back to Australia.

Trainer John O'Shea is an unabashed fan of the young rider and convinced him to return for a summer stint after Marquand had success during a similar venture 12 months ago.

With Sydney's leading riders at the Gold Coast for the Magic Millions carnival, O'Shea called on Marquand to ride his two Randwick runners and he won on both.

Marquand gave Southern Lad a beautiful trail behind the speed to guide the gelding to an overdue win in the Bisley Workwear Handicap (1200m) before another near-faultless display aboard favourite Rocha Clock in the TAB Venue Mode Handicap (1600m).

"It's great to get one up for John," Marquand said after winning aboard Southern Lad.

"I galloped him the other day and he worked very well so I was confident he was one of my better rides today."

He also got the best out of promising filly Rocha Clock who had been bungling the start but had no such dramas on Saturday.

"She jumped well, she was relatively straightforward today," Marquand said.

"She did run out a bit in the straight but that was more to her changing onto the wrong leg prematurely

"She sewed the race up pretty well."

Marquand, who has ridden three city winners during his current Sydney stint, will return to England on February 15.

He also has a booking to ride in Qatar and is hopeful of picking up mounts at next month's $20 million Saudi Cup meeting and the Dubai World Cup carnival.

"The flat season official starts (in England) end of March but doesn't really get going until May," Marquand said.

"I'm due to go to Qatar and it's up in the air between Dubai and Saudi (Arabia)."

– 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 »