Callaghan Park Racing Preview: Friday 30th May.

RAINMAKING FILLY COULD POST HER FIRST WIN AT CALLAGHAN PARK’S BIRTHDAY RACES

She’s nicknamed the rainmaker and with rainfall in the forecast for Friday, the moniker will surely stick for life if two-year-old filly Bungarribee Rain wins the Great Northern QTIS 2YO Maiden Handicap (1200m) at Callaghan Park.

“It’s a funny thing,” trainer Roy Thompson said. “Everywhere this filly went before we named her, it rained. “And it’s ironic it could rain on the day she attempts to win this race.”

Thompson, who has held a trainer’s licence twice in the past 14 years, prepares just two thoroughbreds and he has high hopes for both, but he is particularly chuffed about two-year-old Bungarribee Rain’s future.

Bungarribee Rain made her first and only race appearance at Callaghan Park last month and put in an eye-catching run to fill second place, just over two lengths behind Sheza Alibi over 1200 metres, coming from fifth place and closing strongly at the finish.

For her second race start, Bungarribee Rain will be partnered by apprentice jockey Brooke Johnson who will reduce the filly’s handicap weight by 3kg, giving it an advantage over most of the others in the nine-horse field. Johnson and Thompson have a prior winning association in Rockhampton. The apprentice was aboard Bungarribee Rain’s older stablemate Bungarribee Lad for a win at Callaghan Park in the first month of 2024.

A bay with the good looks of her sire, Group 1 winner Prince Fawaz, Bungarribee Rain is from the Rebel Raider mare Half Moon Blue. She just failed to reach her $20,000 reserve at the 2024 Magic Millions March Yearling Sales and was snapped up by Thompson for a bargain of $1,500, two months later.

“I saw her for sale online and decided to go after her,” Thompson said. “When I asked Liam Birchley what he thought of her, he said he liked her at the March sale, which made my decision to buy her an easy one.”

Raced by the Thompson family and RJC’s newest committee member Sarah Jane Coombs, Bungarribee Rain has got off to a good start and the trainer puts the filly’s ability to good education and rearing.

“She went to Jim Beasley’s Red Brahman Stud, Bungarribee Park, at The Caves and that’s where she began to thrive,” Thompson said.

“The place was in drought and then she arrived, and it rained, and it kept raining,” Thompson said. “Uncle Jim said you better call her “Rain” something, she is a rainmaker.” so that’s how she got her name.”

“We sent her down to Liam (Birchley) at the Sunshine Coast and it rained there too, then she went to Kilcoy, and it rained again.

When Bungarribee Rain didn’t quite measure up in the Southeast after a good initial jumpout, Birchley recommended that Thompson take her back to Rocky and give her some individual attention.

Thompson, who first got his trainers licence in 2011, gave training away for about a decade after getting a metro winner. He has had his licence this time for about three years, but The Catholic College Health and Safety and Student Support Officer, it’s only been over that last 12 months or so that he started to really train horses again.

10:10 AM START FOR BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS AT CALLAGHAN PARK

It’s Callaghan Park Racecourse’s 126^th Birthday and everyone is invited to join the party at Rockhampton’s Friday’s TAB race meeting.

The racetrack’s milestone will be celebrated with an early morning start from 10.10am for the eight local races and a cutting of the birthday cake in the member’s clubhouse.

Callaghan Park’s morning and early afternoon program dovetails into the Sunshine Coast show day races so there will be plenty of Queensland product to bet on. The four-hour local race program concludes at 2:12 PM.

By David Aldred – CEO RJC