NSW's best picnic jockey Ricky Blewitt has been planning to be on Track Flash in Sunday’s Picnic Championship at Dubbo for the past year.
It meant shunning Spinning Dawn, which he helped qualify late last year, and his partner Kylie Kennedy’s horse Zaphod, but he has always felt Track Flash was his best chance.
“I just thought Track Flash was the right horse for this race after he ran fifth in it last year,” Blewitt said. “I just wanted to see him come back and show he had the right form.
The right stuff: Ricky Blewitt and Track Flash take out the Moree Picnic Cup.
“It is the biggest race of the year and you have to make a decision what you want to be on a long way out. Once he got enough points I knew he was the one. He has been going very well.
“I told Kylie that straight away, so she has been using Alan Barton on Zaphod because she knew I was riding this one.
“If I beat her horse in a photo I might be looking for a lift home.”
Track Flash was the leading pointscorer in the series, which runs across 31 meetings through the picnic season, as he scored 38 points with four wins including taking the Mallawa Cup and the Wean Cup.
Blewitt has been the best rider at the picnics for several years. He has won at least one race at the past nine picnic meetings, including four doubles, a treble and four winners at Mooree, where he won Track Flash.
It is the second running of the Picnic Championship. Rodney Robb has three runners – Austin, Rusty Motorbike and Lulu’s Destiny – as he tries to go back-to-back after winning with Security Code last year.
The most interesting of his runners is topweight Austin, which is a Birdsville winner two starts ago.
“He went over 1700 at Louth then two weeks later he went over 1600 in the Betoota Cup and he ran third,” Robb told the Daily Liberal.
“A few weeks later he won at Birdsville over 1600m and then he was successful again at Bedourie.
“He’s done nearly 1800 kilometres and 19 hours on the truck over two days, so he’s a tough horse, but he’ll need every bit of luck on Sunday.
“It’s hard to leave them out of a race like this because it’s a great thing for the stables.”
Race diary
Monday: Cessnock, Corowa. Thursday: Lismore. Friday: Canberra, Scone. Saturday: Barraba, Bowraville, Grenfell, Jerilderie.
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