Planes, trains and winners: Berry’s big week

Tommy Berry is wearing a good path to-and-fro Sydney Airport, but if he gets winning results like Yellow Brick in The Archer, he won’t be complaining.

The champion hoop has been in Perth, Brisbane and then Hawkesbury in the past three weekends, but was in Wagga last Friday and Rockhampton on Sunday for the abandoned first attempt at running The Archer.

“I had to come back to Sydney for trials on Monday, and then the [Central Queensland Amateur] club and Searses were very keen for me to come back for [Tuesday], so I was on a plane again,” Berry said. “I’m back up here on Thursday because I have to ride Maanal and Cinsault in trials at Beaudesert on Friday for Michael [Freedman] and then the Gold Coast on Saturday.”

“I’m spending a lot of time on planes.”

The two trips to Rocky were worth it as Archer favourite Yellow Brick saw off Anemacore and Boomtown Boss to take the major slice of the $1 million prizemoney in the slots race.

It was a ride Berry got because James McDonald couldn’t ride Yellow Brick because of a family holiday in Fiji.

“He said to me you should get on this horse, and I can see why,” Berry said. “I probably will never get on him again because James wouldn’t want to let him go.”

“He is in for a good carnival, it was a good win.”

Berry got Yellow Brick into clear air at the top of the 600m Rockhampton straight, let him build into his work, and he eventually asserted his dominance to win by a length.

“They just wanted me to make sure I got room” Berry said.

“He’s a big horse and he takes a little bit of winding up, but it was a good effort today. Because he was first-up, and he was a little bit keen in the run and being on the fresh side.”

“Great effort by the team to get him ready, to get him ready twice too, for today. It was worth coming back for, for the second time.”