Steve and Jenny Turnbull.
LEADING Bathurst trainer Steve Turnbull heads to Blayney this afternoon with the two top seeds in the Peter Marshall Memorial, the feature event on an eight-race program.
His two fillies, Smooth Bon Bon and Lexie Girl won their respective qualifying heats impressively and despite each drawing poorly in the $12,000 final still look likely to fight out the race.
Smooth Bon Bon was dominant last week and again has the services of Amanda Turnbul, who has an impressive strike rate in winning series races on the country circuit.
Lexie Girl has her regular driver Mitch Turnbull on board and her heat run was also full of merit.
After being headed halfway down the straight by runner-up Promising, the filly lifted herself off the canvas to score by a half head.
But she must contend with a barrier nine, second-line draw which will make her task of overpowering her opposition all that much harder.
Despite the non-favourable draws, Steve remains confident that both his finalists have strong claims.
“Both of these fillies will be in the finish today with equal luck, I am quite confident of that,” said Turnbull.
“Smooth Bon Bon had an easy time of things in front last week in her heat and the way she ran away from her opposition was really impressive.
“Lexie Girl had to fight hard, and she dug deep to win which was pleasing so I think it will be good race.
“Bernie [Hewitt] has Promising going well and looks to be the danger to my pair as he has drawn well.
“We love getting to these little tracks and supporting them.
“As a driver, I cut my teeth on tracks like Blayney, and it is great to see that they can still attract good fields.”
It has been a solid year again for Turnbull as he currently sits at third with 92 winners on the state’s trainers’ premiership table and is hoping he can break that century barrier by year’s end - something he has achieved on numerous occasions.
“I think last year was the first season in a decade that I had not trained 100 winners, so it would be nice to get back there,” he said.
“These days I do not train anywhere near the numbers that I used to, so to still finish in the mix with the state’s leading trainers is quite satisfying.”