HE has enjoyed good success as a driver and now after a good weekend in the sulky, Nathan Turnbull is just one win away from reaching 200 career wins as a trainer.
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A training double at Bathurst on Friday night accompanied by a metropolitan victory at Menangle on Saturday has left the The Lagoon trainer within reach of the milestone.
"I didn't know how many winners I had trained, but it's exciting to be so close to cracking 200," Turnbull said.
Five-year-old mare Carramar Times Up brought up win number 197 for Turnbull in race one at Bathurst on Friday night, leading the 10-horse-field all the way.
Able to dictate terms to a nicety early on, Turnbull made sure his runner had plenty of gas left in the tank, running away from the opposition to score by over 15 metres.
"I thought she could win as long as she did everything right, she's a bit of a handful" Turnbull said.
"She is getting out of the gate a lot better lately and once she led I was just worried about the horse on my back, but she got the job done."
Later on in the night, win 198 popped up courtesy of four-year-old gelding Shoobees Magic.
In what was a similarly run race to his previous victory, Turnbull found the lead early before slamming the breaks on. Getting away with a murderous 63.8 seconds first half, Shoobees Magic was then able to hold off rivals in the run to the finish, scoring by 1.9m.
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Turnbull's third win for the weekend came up in the second race of the night at Menangle when Power Of Red won at odds of $17.
Again, it was a well-rated front-running drive that saw the seven-year-old gelding cross the line first.
Finding the lead early, Turnbull nursed his gelding through the first half of the journey, allowing him to stride out over the concluding stages.
Clocking a 1:54.5 mile rate over the longer journey of 2,300m, it was Power Of Red's personal best time over that distance.
The full brother to Atomic Red, who has just finished his Inter Dominion campaign in New Zealand, not only notched up Turnbull's 199th training win, but scored his 20th lifetime victory, taking his earnings to just shy of $240,000.
Turnbull will head back to Menangle with Power Of Red and possibly look at putting him in his Grandmother's race - the Shirley Turnbull Memorial - at Bathurst's Boxing Night meeting.
"I'll see how he goes at Menangle, it's going to be a really hard field at Bathurst but I'd love to have one in my Nan's race," he said.
With no specific goals set, other than to keep training winners, Turnbull is looking to have three-year-old Camanchi Warrior compete in the 2020 Gold Chalice - one of the features of the annual Bathurst Gold Crown Carnival.
"I don't have any two-year-olds for the Gold Crown but I do drive some nice three-year-olds and Camanchi Warrior will be set for the series," he said.
"Other than that, I don't have any specific races that I'm chasing, I love winning any race, but a Group 1 one day would be amazing."
