Sport
11 October, 2025
Big day for Mackay stable with three feature wins at Cloncurry
John Manzelmann was a happy man after his son and partner picked up a heap of prizemoney at Schumacher Park.
John Manzelmann didn’t technically train a winner at Cloncurry on Friday, but he might have been the happiest man on course.
His Mackay team, featuring son Lachie and his partner Jade Doolan, walked away with three feature races at Schumacher Park, earning more than $54,000 in the process, and booking two berths in Brisbane races in December.
“It’s been really good,” said Manzelmann, who stunned the North Queensland racing world this month when he transferred just about every horse out of his name into other stables – most of them with Lachie and Jade.
“Lachie’s taken over the training and he’s doing a wonderful job, so it’s all panning out really good.
“I’m just going to ease down a little bit – insurances were getting out of hand.
“Rather than both of us paying stupidly high rates of insurance, I’ve just stepped back and he can take over, that way only one of us has to pay them.”
Despite no longer being in charge, Manzelmann was one of the best-credentialled strappers at Cloncurry.
He and Doolan brought 10 horses to the Outback TAB meeting and were well rewarded.
Legendary for travelling long distances for race meetings, including all the way north to Cooktown and west to Mount Isa, Manzelmann said he wouldn’t make it back to Mackay until Sunday.
“We’ll stay here tonight and then get to Townsville on Saturday and then home on Sunday,” he said after the team won the Cloncurry Cup in the last on Friday.
Divine Okay ($3.20) was a brilliant winner of the 1600m feature, which doubled as a qualifier of the Country Cups Challenge, with the $200,000 final to be held at Doomben on December 6.
The seven-year-old gelding, who had just won the Twin Hills Cup in record-breaking time, benefited from a hot tempo after Metal Bar and hot favourite Testator Silens went hammer and tongs for most of the race.
Divine Okay then swooped over the top to win by more than five lengths with an elated Adam Sewell in the saddle.
Manzelmann said he was not surprised the stable had a good day, but said he wasn’t that confident about the Cup.
“I thought they’d run good, but when you’re taking on horses like Clinton Austin’s horse (Testator Silens), you can never be confident,” he said.
“I really respect that horse; it goes really good. This fella does, too, and he was ridden perfectly today – it was a good result.”
While the veteran trainer said the prizemoney was wonderful, he mostly made the trip to Cloncurry to get horses qualified for the Country Cups Challenge and Country Stampede.
They did just that, with the team running the quinella in the earlier Open Handicap (1000m).
It helped when favourite Mr Metrics was a late scratching because he wouldn’t go into the barriers, but the Lachie Manzelmann-trained Cochrane and the Doolan-trained Your Too Good ($3.80) paired off and put a gap on the field to run first and second, with the latter getting the upper hand in the last 100 metres.
In the race before, Manzelmann galloper Whatta Whitt ($3.70) was an impressive winner of The Aviator (1200m), a Class 1 feature race put on by the Cloncurry and District Race Club.
He won by almost four lengths for jockey Paul Hamblin in the $25,000 event.
Because The Aviator attract so many entries, the Cloncurry club opted to stump up the extra money to split the race into two, meaning no trainer would miss out on having a crack at earning a slice of the rich purse.
The first Aviator race was taken out by Barcaldine trainer Toni Schofield, who prepared Dawn Embers to a classy victory.
The $2 favourite put a gap on the field in the fast-run race.
Schofield then made it a double later in the day when $2.10 favourite Hurricane Thunder justified his short quote and won convincingly in the Class 6 Handicap.
Meanwhile, Julia Creek trainer Tanya Parry might not have won a feature race on Friday, but she did walk away with three winners on the TAB program.
Parry prepared outsider Corvalist ($10) to break his maiden in the first – ridden by Micheal McDonald – before nothing a running double later in the day.
Stable newcomer Meghan ($8.50) led all of the way in the Benchmark 50 (1400m) for jockey Brooke Stower, then Chris Whiteley partnered Vonk ($11) to a tough win in the Benchmark 55 (1000m).
The next North West race meeting will be on Monday, October 20, when Mount Isa Race Club hosts a TAB program.