Meeting In Review – Saturday 4 January 2025
Meeting In Review – Saturday 4 January 2025 New
Date: 06-Jan-2025
It was the Justin Huxtable show at Saturday’s Ipswich meeting and everyone else was just along for the ride.
It’s a bold statement but when he is on his game, there are few better jockeys in Queensland than the 24-year-old hoop.
That was certainly the case on the weekend with Huxtable riding a four-timer and if that wasn’t impressive enough, the four wins came in consecutive races.
Amazingly, the talented jockey rode four winners at Beaudesert just a week ago.
Huxtable started his winning day aboard the Kelly Schweida-trained Roll Up.
The Zoustar gelding opened favourite in the small field, but punters rallied late around the Jack Bruce-trained Denied.
There was little separating the pair in price and on the track as they duked it out at the end of the 1350m contest, but it was the strength of Huxtable that got Roll Up over the line to win by a head.
Roll Up confirmed his title as an Ipswich specialist having now won six times from eight starts at the Bundamba circuit.
Huxtable produced an excellent ride to deliver a win for Nitrogen in the Maiden Handicap over 1350m.
The Chris Anderson-trained gelding loomed large in the straight but wasn’t afforded a lot of room to operate.
The gap finally came with 100m to go at which point ‘Hux’ blasted through and rode hard to lift his mount over the line for a neck win.
Huxtable teamed up with the Nick Keal-trained Radegast in the Benchmark 62 Handicap over the Ipswich Cup distance.
With Venturous rolling along in front at a fair tempo, Huxtable was happy to sit back and let things play out in front of him.
The son of Savabeel was last approaching the home straight and had work to do but Huxtable saved ground before driving his mount hard to the line to win in fine fashion.
It was a big day for Keal who has only been training since June last year.
After Radegast’s win, he floated his horses home to Toowoomba and headed to Clifford Park where both his runners won much to the delight of his supporters.
Huxtable was victorious for the fourth and final time when he piloted the Lindsay Hatch-trained Writtle.
The Written Tycoon gelding jumped well in the 800m scamper but Huxtable was unable to get in from the wide draw.
Under the urging of one of the strongest jockeys, Writtle was able to power home and win by a neck.
Huxtable’s masterclass could very well be one of the performances of the season at Ipswich.
His four scalps took him to eight winners for the season and a share of second place on the Ipswich Jockey Premiership.
Other impressive wins on the day included Double Glazed in the Maiden Handicap over 2150m and Provance in the final event of the day.
The Tony & Maddy Sears-trained Double Glazed settled back before letting down powerfully to easily win by 3.5 lengths.
After two close seconds earlier in the day, Ryan Wiggins finally got on the board when he guided Provance to a 2.6 length win.
When the money comes for a David Vandyke-trained galloper, it is rarely wrong and that was the case on Saturday with the Star Witness colt putting his rivals to the sword.
With the dramas surrounding the Gold Coast Turf Club, please note that we have picked up a meeting this Tuesday, January 7th.
By Craig Sheppard
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