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By Colin Hodges

The resurgence of Orange as an important player in country racing continued last Friday with a tremendous crowd at Towac Park.

Although not programmed with any feature races, the attendance equalled or bettered that at many Cup meetings in the region.

A 14-horse field contested the highest grade race, the 1300m Central West Power Construction Benchmark 82 Handicap , won by the Danielle Seib, Canberra-trained Master Of Disguise ridden by apprentice Dale Cole.

Master of Disguise (Kerrin McEvoy) heads to the barriers at Royal Randwick. Image by Bradley Photographers

Suffering horrific injuries at trackwork when bucked from a horse and dragged hundreds of metres, Dale Cole after more then 12 months recovery made a miracle return to the saddle and rode his first winner at Goulburn in May this year.

Dale Cole has now ridden 10 winners and it was a cool and well judged ride on Master Of Disguise which led early before being steadied to have a nice run close to Life’s A Party.

Taking advantage of an inside run, Master Of Disguise ($2.05 favourite) took control in the straight to win by two lengths from the fast finishing How’s It Kev (Jordan Quince, $21) with Life’s A Party (Donovan Dillon, $15) a head away third.

Local trainer Alison Smith before her second with How’s It Kev had been a popular winner of the 1280m On-Track Ag Maiden Plate with Rosie I Am.

Street Skater (Wendy Peel, $3.40 fav) took the lead in the straight from Bastion, however, after a good battle, Rosie I Am (Clayton Gallagher, $6) won by a half length from Street Skater while Twin Gift (Zoe Hunt, $31) ran home well for third.

Bred and owned by Michael Kennedy, formerly from the Come-By-Chance area and now living at Orange, the Clint Lundholm, Dubbo-trained Crook ($5 fav) well ridden by apprentice Zoe Hunt, was ready to pounce turning for home.

The horse swept to a strong win over Jacob Joe (Pierre Boudvillain, $14) and Quick Onyx (Grant Buckley, $9.50) in the 1000m Pirtek Orange Country Boosted Benchmark 58 Handicap.

Another Dubbo trainer with a winner was Connie Greig with Broadcast Boogie (Mikayla Weir, $4.40) in the 1600m Tamburlaine Organic Wines Maiden Handicap. Orange will next race on Monday 15th December.

View the full results with race replays for Orange here