HONESTY is a virtue and possessing it in bucketfuls is the five-year-old Bathurst trained mare Worldly Pleasure.
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Trained by Dean Mirfin for the Bathurst based Deal family and their friends, the O'Connor and Lennon families, Worldly Pleasure scored a game win on the Kensington track at Royal Randwick on Friday.
It advanced an already enviable record to seven wins and three placings from 17 starts and took the mare's prize money tally over $110,000.
Although consistent with two thirds at Dubbo and a fourth at Bathurst when commencing racing as a late three-year-old, Worldly Pleasure was overshadowed by others from the Dean Mirfin stable with Jetgirl and Winterconi winning two of those races.
In fact, Mirfin trained the trifecta at Dubbo with Jetgirl beating Winterconi and Worldly Pleasure.
The breakthrough for Worldly Pleasure came in November 2018 when beating Supreme Gem and Stars Galawe in a 1000 metres maiden handicap at Orange when ridden by Eleanor Webster-Hawes.
During the 2018/2019 racing season Worldly Pleasure was to win six races, including three at Orange and two at Bathurst followed by a stirring victory at Canterbury over Mocassin Miss and Koonunga, to give Webster-Hawes her first Sydney win.
In one season Mirfin had taken Worldly Pleasure from a maiden win to being a victor in metropolitan company.
Webster-Hawes was the winning rider on five occasions while Jamie Gibbons, then apprenticed to Mirfin, was aboard for the other win.
In her first win for the new season, at Kensington on Friday, Webster-Hawes missed the winning ride as being stable jockey for Bathurst trainer partnership Don and Andrew Ryan, she took the ride on Ave in the same race.
To lessen the big weight allocated to Worldly Pleasure, Cejay Graham who was able to claim a three kilogram apprentice allowance, was booked for the ride.
Cejay Graham, who is the daughter of leading north coast jockey Peter Graham, took Worldly Pleasure to the early lead but the Bathurst mare was under siege when joined by two more fancied runners at the top of the straight.
In a typically brave performance Worldly Pleasure ($18) refused to concede and fought back to win by a half length from the Kris Lees trained Bubbles Ball (Samantha Clenton, $4) and the Chris Waller trained Voila (Brock Ryan, $7.50 ).
There is a poignant story regarding the colours carried by the Bathurst mare Worldly Pleasure since commencing racing as a three-year-old filly in June 2018.
Thought to be the tallest jockey in Australia, Stuart Brown rode hundreds of winners on the picnic circuit before his death from cancer, aged 43, in 2015.
At the village where he was reared, Brown rode three Bedgerabong Picnic Cup winners, Emerald Park, Thuntastique and Fujimoto, all being trained at Orange by Andrew Wardle.
Buried with Brown at the Bedgerabong cemetery were the blue jacket with white star colours he wore in the Cup wins on Thuntastique and Fujimoto owned by the Deal family from Bathurst.
When the filly Worldly Pleasure came in to the ownership of the Deal family, a new set of colours was designed and made. The blue jacket and white star remained however, the cap colour was changed to brown, to honour Brown, while black arm bands were added in memory of the late Max Wardle, a former leading Orange trainer and the father of Andrew Wardle who trained the Bedgerabong Cup winners.
Worldly Pleasure, now a dual Sydney winner, is the first galloper to carry the new colours.
Racing at Warren on Friday followed by Orange (December 16 ), Dubbo (December 21 ) Bathurst (December 23 ), Wellington (Boxing Day), Gilgandra (December 28 ), Trangie Picnics (December 29 ) and Orange (December 30).
