Rawiller sticks with Watabout in The Rosebud

The early booking of Nash Rawiller to ride Watabout in the Listed $100,000 The Rosebud (1200m) at Randwick tomorrow has opened up the door for Tommy Berry to ride race favourite Bull Point.

watabout

Nash Rawiller to stick with Watabout in The Rosebud at Randwick. Photo by Steve Hart.

Rawiller has been the regular rider for the Gai Waterhouse trained Bull Point and the pair have collected two wins and a second from three race starts.

The premiership winning jockey has also partnered Watabout, trained by Allan Denham at Wyong,  at her last two wins at Canterbury and Randwick.

Bull Point was an impressive three lengths winner over 1200m at Rosehill last start but a prior commitment to ride Watabout has seen him having to relinquished the ride on the Waterhouse colt,  giving Berry the opportunity to take over.

“I’m certainly happy to be on this filly. I accepted the ride quite some time ago actually and Bull Point’s fallen in the same race. So we are going to honour that,” Rawiller told Racing Ahead.

“She’s done everything right. I’ve got a huge opinion of her, I think she will be better again next preparation, probably getting into the Autumn Carnival in Sydney, I think she will be a Group 1 filly.”

“As far as jumping off Bull Point to ride her, I don’t think I would have necessarily done that. It would have been a very tough decision, put it that way.”

Berry has only recently returned from a short but successful riding stint in Hong Kong to resume as the number two rider for the Waterhouse stable behind Rawiller and will grab this opportunity to ride the promising colt.

“He’s lovely nice strong colt. He can put himself wherever he wants to be in a race, it’s a great asset to have, he relaxes very well and switches off,” Berry told Racing Ahead.

“His work has been faultless since his last start win and I couldn’t be any happier with him the way he is going into this race.”

“I’ve galloped him probably his last two gallops, he has a great nature and all he wants to do is go out and please you and a will to win.”

Bull Point, the $3.10 favourite, has a slight advantage over Watabout who has been posted at $4 with the Bart and James Cummings trained Eurozone splitting that pair at $3.50.

Eurozone is striving to remain unbeaten and had the wood on Bull Point when they clashed at Rosehill on July 6.

About The Author

Mark Mazzaglia

Mark is a passionate journalist with a life-time involvement in the racing industry. He spent many years as an analyst and form expert at the Courier Mail and also has hands-on experience working with some of Queensland’s top trainers.