By Garry Dell
North Queensland's comeback jockey Lacey Morrison sewed up another Townsville jockeys’ premiership with an historic four winners at Cluden Park on Saturday.
Fittingly her feat came on the Townsville Turf Club's Ladies Day feature on the first day of the club’s 2024 Winter Carnival run over three successive weekends.
Morrison's first Townsville TAB meeting quartet included the three feature races _ the Ladies Bracelet, Winter Cup and Mayor's Sprint for respective trainers Graham Hughes (Lady Rain), Joshua Manzelmann (Fortified) and Tom Button (Northern Pride).
Saturday's feat bettered her treble at the previous Cluden Park meeting on July 7 when she also piloted Lady Rain.
Morrison, 40, who took a break from race riding for eight years from 2013 to undertake firstly a training career and later a nursing career, returned to the saddle from where she left off and is having her best season with a total of 98 winners at North Queensland meetings ranging from Townsville to Oak Park and almost every country track in between.
She demonstrated her strength and guile in "nursing" three-year-old gelding Beau Rain to his first victory since a stellar two-year-old season for Wulguru trainer Bill Kenning to complete a double for him on Saturday.
According to Racing and Sports statistics, Morrison is edging close to a career of 600 winners - 300 of which have come since her return in 2021 when she teamed with Tolga trainer, Sharlee Hoffman, when moving to the Atherton Tableland eight-and-a-half years ago.
The duo became a strong force in the North and Morrison became in demand from most of the leading stables, including those of champion trainer Roy Chillemi and fellow Tom Hedley trainer Stephen Massingham, who dominate racing at Cairns.
Morrison said her Townsville quartet was "up there" with her best day in the saddle when she piloted five winners at a similar Ladies Day feature meeting at Cairns last year.
"I'm really enjoying myself," she said.
"It's great to be riding winners and I'm three quarters of my way through my nursing training.
"I'll probably have to back off riding a bit when I complete my studies but there's a little way to go yet.
"In the meantime, I'm looking forward to the carnivals up here and I love riding against the fly-in-fly-out boys like Ryan Wiggins and co.
"I'm particularly looking forward to riding Northern Pride for Tom Button in the Cleveland Bay at Townsville as I've never won that feature.
"I've won a Townsville Cup a few years ago on Legal Brief who also won a Cup at Cairns."
Morrison, a natural lightweight, hopes to ride around 52.5kg over the carnivals.
"I don't have much problem keeping my weight under control with riding trackwork at Tolga and racing every week somewhere in North Queensland," she said.