Jindabyne trainer Georgie Boucher poses with her Tumut Mile silverware following Gwennybegg’s victory in the $18,000 feature race. 
Teighan Worsnop guides Gwennybegg to the easiest of victories in Saturday’s Tumut Mile. 
Georgie Boucher and Teighan Worsnop combined to win Saturday’s Tumut Mile with talented mare, Gwennybegg.
It was simply a day of sensations at Tumut Turf Club on Saturday.
For what started out to be a splendid day, a passing storm and a heavy deluge of rain threatened to put a halt to the meeting after the second race.
The stewards were subsequently kept very busy with the meeting progressing, and some surprise results throughout the six-race-program certainly kept everyone guessing.
Still, in the Ray White Tumut Mile – the $18,000 feature race on the TAB program – punters found the Georgie Boucher-trained Gwennybegg and catapulted the Jindabyne mare into as short as $1.75 with some bookmakers.
Under the guidance of local product, Teighan Worsnop, the Shamus Award mare didn’t let anyone down, finding the front after a furlong and running away for a 5.51 lengths victory.
Despite working hard against local hope, Foxlike, Gwennybegg turned it on for the crowd, finding the line strongly and with her ears pricked to win easily from the Doug Gorrel-trained and Michael Heagney-ridden Would Be King, while Foxlike hung on gamely for third for trainer Kerry Weir and jockey Ruby Haylock.
“Well, I nearly cried after she won,” Boucher explained to the Tumut and Adelong Times after the running of the 2022 Tumut Mile.
“It’s all a bit daunting and I’m like, ‘where do I go to from now with her’; she is just an amazing mare that keeps improving and I’m so happy that she won today.”
Gwennybegg was fresh off back-to-back wins, which included a whopping 11-length victory at Tumut over the 1600m on Boxing Day before a comfortable victory in the 1800m Benchmark 58 Handicap at Wagga last week.
Despite her form, Boucher said she was never confident of winning, with the Tumut Mile field by far her mare’s biggest test.
“No, I’m never confident,” Boucher laughed.
“What helped was that the barrier was a lot nicer to me today and everything was in her favour, but I wasn’t sure what Crocodile Cod was going to do because I thought he was the horse to beat.”
Gwennybegg’s meteoric rise from Benchmark 50 racing to a victory in the Tumut Mile gives Boucher the biggest win of her training career, and now she is planning her next assault, which will likely be the Bega Showcase Cup on January 30.
“She has won three races now in three weeks. There was nine days and then 10 days between runs,” Boucher said.
“She just keeps improving and getting better and now we need to look at those good races and work out where to go next.”
Boucher had a day out at Tumut, with Low Altitude giving the stable a rare double when winning the 1400m Maiden Handicap.
In a thrilling finish, the four-year-old found the front for apprentice Molly Bourke before holding on by 0.02 of a length from the Anthony Craig-trained and Teaghan Martin-ridden King Tat, while Fighting Pleasure finished a further three lengths away in third for trainer Doug Gorrel and jockey Michael Heagney.
“He’s a funny horse. He started for me here on Derby Day and I said to Quayde then, ‘I don’t know what he is like, I’ve galloped him on the track twice’, and we didn’t know what to expect,” Boucher said
“He is a nervous little bugger, but he needs confidence, and he is turning into a nice little racehorse with the more racing he has.”
Recording a double at Tumut’s once-a-year TAB meeting is no doubt one of, if not the biggest day in Boucher’s training career, and she explained it was made all the more sweeter because she owned both gallopers.
“I’ve trained Bombala and Cooma doubles when i had Coolamine, but I only trained those horses then, and didn’t own them but with these two that won today, I own both of them,” Boucher said.
“It’s great for us. My partner and my mum and stepdad are the other owners, and it has been a great day for all of us.”
Boucher praised the stewards for pushing on with the Tumut meeting too, with a heavy deluge falling during the second race, which led to some jockeys raising concerns about the state of the track.
“After that second race and all the rain, we were just saying, ‘please keep going, please keep going’, and these small country towns and us country trainers need these race meetings and it was good to see it go ahead,” Boucher said.
It was a big day at Tumut Turf Club, and although the crowd was smaller than expected, a bumper day of racing was well supported on the TAB.
