Hall Seeks Eleventh Winter Cup

Hall of Fame trainer Gary Hall Snr boasts a remarkable record in the Winter Cup at Gloucester Park and he hopes to chalk up his 11TH success in the feature event over 2536m on Friday night.

He will be represented by the favourite and $1.8 million champion performer Chicago Bull, who will be handled by star reinsman Gary Hall Jnr from the awkward barrier No. 6 in the field of seven runners.

Hall Jnr admitted that Chicago Bull was facing a testing battle, saying: “Barrier six does him no favours in a small field. I’ll be up outside of them (in the breeze) at some stage and Our Jimmy Johnstone will be hard to beat again.”

Our Jimmy Johnstone, an evergreen 11-year-old to be driven by Bailey McDonough for leading trainers Greg and Skye Bond, is favourably drawn at the No. 2 barrier. Three starts ago, on May 15, Our Jimmy Johnstone finished powerfully from last at the bell in a field of six to snatch a last-stride half-head victory over Chicago Bull over 2130m after final quarters of 26.8sec. and 28.4sec. Chicago Bull had raced in the breeze outside Golden State before getting to the front 240m from home.

Our Jimmy Johnstone set the pace from barrier one and won convincingly from stablemate Ocean Ridge over 2536m last Friday week. Ocean Ridge (Ryan Warwick) will start from the No. 3 barrier on Friday night, with another stablemate Mighty Santana (Dylan Egerton-Green) starting from barrier four.

Since his narrow defeat at the hands of Our Jimmy Johnstone Chicago Bull has raced twice for wins over 1730m and 2130m to improve his record to 73 starts for 47 wins and 20 placings.

“The distance of Friday night’s race will suit Chicago Bull,” said Hall jnr. However, he admitted that the champion would not be having a walk in the park and that a win was certainly far from a foregone conclusion.

Hall senior’s imposing Winter Cup record is victories with Kaydee (1994), The Falcon Strike (2003), Iontheball (2006), Washakie (2008), Im Themightyquinn (2009 and 2013), Davy Maguire (2012), Machtu (2015), Run Oneover (2016) and Tact Major (2019).