Mareeba Annuals honours shared five ways
GORDONVALE trainer Wade Baker is proof that once racing is in your blood, it is there forever.
The former jockey just has the one horse in work at present, Cheers For Ausbred, and that was enough to claim a win at the moved Mareeba Annuals race meet at Cannon Park on Saturday afternoon.
Baker, the brother of trainer Glen and cousin of fellow Far North trainer Ralph, went 15 years without training a horse but he is having some fun with this five-year-old mare.
He was out of the game from 2000 until late 2015 but has had a small team of horses since, with Round the Corner, Make Even and Cheers For Ausbred running around North Queensland.
“I was out for a fair while,” Baker said with a laugh. “I rode as a jockey, gave that away, had a crack at training and then got out of it all together for a while. My family has always been in racing, for a few generations at least.
“Once it is in your blood, you are in it.”
It took Cheers For Ausbred seven starts to crack a winner in the Far North, claiming the Class B Handicap (1250m) at Cannon Park in front of Alwyn Bailey pair Monsoon Twister and Rose of Kalloni.
“That was her third start in a row, we took her to Ingham the other day and the track was too hard down there,” Baker said.
“I decided to back her up and she went very well.
“She has been a bit of a headache of a horse.”
The honours were shared at Cannon Park on Saturday with five different jockeys and trainers getting a winner.
The leading partnership of trainer Samantha Molino and hoop Stephen Wilson (pictured) claimed the feature event of the day as Vaunting was just over a length too strong in the $10,000 Benchmark 65 Handicap (1500m).
Earlier in the day, Canon King, partly owned by North Cairns coach Iaon Drake, and trained at Mareeba by Alex Malliff, finally broke through for his first win in the Far North.