Telfers win four on Winton Cup day

By Jonny Turner

Stonewall Stud set themselves an almighty hard act to follow with their domination of Saturday’s Winton Cup Day.

Trainers Steve and Amanda Telfer will go into next week’s Diamonds Day after producing Beach Flybye to win the Winton Cup and Sweet Diamond to win the Southern Belle Speed Series Final.

Bettors Anvil and Built For Glory took out Saturday’s features for two and three-year-old pacing colts, adding to a massive day out for team Stonewall.

Though head reinsman Tim Williams was thrilled to pilot three of the Stonewall winners, one victory stood out.

Williams is a great friend of the Gray family and was honoured to win the Murray Gray Memorial with Bettors Anvil.

“I couldn’t have asked for a better race to win on the day, obviously we are great friends outside racing and they’re great people. “

Bettors Anvil was a powerful winner of the event, showing what a force he will be at next week’s Diamonds Day meeting.

“It is probably not ideal having to go three weeks in a row with him,” Williams said.

“But he had a nice quiet one last week and he needed the ringcraft.”

“Obviously the big race at Invercargill, it is going to be a great race and a great field and he just needed a little bit more experience.”

“We just wanted to see how he measured up with the big boys today.”

A brilliant beginning set up Beach Flybye’s front-running win in the Winton Cup.

Amanda Telfer never lost faith in the pacer heading into the feature event despite there being differing opinions in her camp about the horse’s recent work.

“It was funny, during the week a lot of them were saying he didn’t work very good,” Telfer said.

“So, I think the others just worked better.”

Luck has seldom been on Sweet Diamond’s side, but it was in Saturday’s Southern Belle Speed Series Final.

The four-year-old trailed the leader Advance Party, from her barrier 1 on the second-row draw, and made full use of her perfect trip.

Cox paid tribute to the Stonewall Stud team, from Steve Stockman, Gillian Stockman, Steve and Amanda Telfer, down to the entire staff.

“It is a huge team, Tim and I are just part of it we are the lucky ones sitting in the cart.”

Built For Glory was a big winner of a Southern Supremacy Stakes Heat at Winton in April and returned on Saturday to produce arguably a more impressive heat victory.

In downing local favourite Dreams Are Free, the three-year-old showed he is right on track for the Group Two Southern Supremacy Stakes Final on Diamonds Day.

The only feature race that eluded Stonewall Stud among their Winton haul was the Group Two Entain Two-Year-Old Fillies Stakes, taken out by the Nathan Williamson trained and driven Captains Mistress.

The half-sister to Merlin produced a brilliant turn of foot to win the inaugural running of the event just hours after her big brother emphatically won The Race by Grins.