Veteran bush jockey Mathew Cahill produced the ride of his life to win a second Wagga Gold Cup with Victorian visitor Inverloch on Friday.
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Cahill produced a masterful front-running ride as Inverloch ($31) broke the hearts of his rivals to score an all-the-way win in the $200,000 Wagga Gold Cup (2000m).
Former New Zealand couple Trent Busuttin and Natalie Young had never sent a horse to Wagga before but leave with the city's big race and a perfect strike rate.
Inverloch pinched a break rounding for home and fought for his life over the final 100 metres to hold off the two favourites, Yonkers ($3.90) and Spirit Ridge ($4.40) who dead heated for second, by a long neck.
Cahill, who is based in Cowra, won his first Wagga Gold Cup 24 years ago and thought the opportunity to win the race for a second time had passed him by.
"It's great to win on days like this. It's hard to win a maiden here, much less the cup. It's very satisfying," the 53-year-old said.
"I think I've had about 30 rides in it and I've won it once before and a couple been a bit stiff. To get to this stage of the career, you think you're never going to get on a chance in the race again but it's really nice to get a nice ride in it and really nice to be able to win."
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Cahill, who had never spoken to Busuttin and Young before, said the ride came out of the blue.
"I only picked the ride up late, after acceptances so it was a bit unexpected. I'd never ridden for the trainer before or anything," he said.
"Trent's obviously quite successful, he's been a good old horse, he might be past his best a bit now but he said he had him really well and he said if you can get an easy lead, he would be hard to beat.
"He said get going from the 800 metres and it make it a true staying test and that's how it worked out. I had nothing left the last 100 but I didn't have to, we had enough to win.
"I could hear them coming and I was on tired legs so I knew if they were coming quick they might get me but full credit to the horse, he stuck his head out, tried his heart out and hung on."
Busuttin was glad they decided to head to Wagga.
"Fantastic. It's our first day here, first day at Wagga, first day of racing horses here and you have a look at the crowd, have a look at the atmosphere, it's fantastic, it's just great country racing," Busuttin said.
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