BRAD’S EARLY SEASON JUST FINE AND DANDY

TUESDAY, August 13, 2024: ANOTHER day. Another Brad Widdup winner for owner John Cordina.

Hawkesbury’s leading trainer raced to seven victories – four of them have been for Cordina’s Summertime Thoroughbreds – in the first 13 days of the new season when a resuming High Dandy ($2.05 favorite) trounced his rivals at Hawkesbury today..

With Tyler Schiller aboard, the son of Cordina’s 2017 Victoria Derby winner Ace High began quickly and never looked like losing the Happy 99^th Birthday Nita Class 1 Handicap (1500m).

High Dandy scored by nearly seven lengths from Tears For Fears ($9) and Line Of Fire ($3.60).

Brad began the season at home on August 1 with a double, which included Cordina’s Party Doll, and subsequently also got results for him with Canny Queen at Wyong on August 4 and Fun Sunday at Kembla Grange last Saturday.

Now a four-year-old, High Dandy has raced only six times for two wins.

He also easily won a Super Maiden Plate (1600m) at Wyong in March by nearly five lengths after also leading throughout, then took a quantum leap tackling a couple of black type races during the Sydney autumn carnival.

High Dandy was spelled after being unplaced in both the Group 2 Tulloch Stakes (2000m) at Rosehill Gardens and Group 3 Carbine Club Stakes (1600m) at Royal Randwick.

Brad had trialled the horse twice at Warwick Farm and Hawkesbury; the latest at home only eight days ago.

“I normally don’t kick horses off so soon after a trial, but both John and myself noticed this race,” he said this evening.

“It wasn’t the strongest Class 1, and High Dandy did the job well.”

Not surprisingly, Brad’s blazing start to the new season has him at the top of the NSW premiership, but he says he didn’t see such a burst of winners coming so quickly.

Nonetheless, he feels milder than normal minimum temperatures at Hawkesbury have played a part in his success.

“It has been one of the milder minimum temperate winters here in years,” Brad said.

“As a result the horses have done really well, and that has been showing in their performances on the track.