News

Weir tops ton with Flemington treble

10th Jul 2016

Racing.com - Brad Bishop - Saturday, 9 July 2016

One milestone down, another just a couple of wins away.

That is the state of play regarding Weir Watch after yet another metropolitan treble for Darren Weir at Flemington on Saturday.

The Ballarat trainer joined a trio of all-time greats when he cracked 100 Victorian city winners in a season for the first time in his career.

After registering win No 99 via Killarney Kid in the $100,000 VRC/CRV Cup Tour Trophy (Race 3), Weir brought up the ton three races later when Master Of Arts won the $120,000 Banjo Paterson Series Final.

He put an exclamation point on the day in the final event, which he won with Telopea.

Weir joins Lee Freedman (115 winners in 2005/06), David Hayes (103, 2006/07) and Peter Moody (103.5, 2010/11) as those to have topped the ton in Melbourne.

Weir said after Master Of Arts’ win that a century of city winners was never a goal he entertained setting himself and that he considered his season a success when he topped last season’s premiership-winning tally of 79 winners.

“If you get 104 city winners – that’s two city winners a week – if someone said you were going to do that at the start of the year you’d tell them their kidding,” Weir said.

“We were just hoping we could win as many races as we did last year in the city. That was the goal. This is where you want to be competitive, in the city. That’s the main focus for us now.

“But it’s great that this has happened and it’s out of the road anyway.”

Weir’s 100th winner came with his 665th starter for the season and he also had 70 seconds and 62 third placegetters. The $66,000 Master Of Arts collected for his win took Weir past $12 million in Victorian metro earnings.

A large chunk of that was supplied by Prince Of Penzance’s Melbourne Cup win, one of six Group 1 wins for the season for the 46-year-old.

Those victories are a part of an overall season’s tally of 332 wins, which have Weir poised to pass John Hawkes’ Australasian record of 334 wins in a season in coming days.

Weir has strong books at both Sunday venues; six runners across five races at Warracknabeal and five runners across three races at Warrnambool.

He has seven runners engaged at Echuca on Monday and a handful of representatives at Murtoa the following day.

Photo: Darren Weir (right) with his bloodstock agent John Foote at the Inglis Premier Yearling Sale