After a winner on Town Plate day, the Murray stable continued their charge with a winning double on Cup day at Murrumbidgee Turf Club.

Swift Reply won the opening race and then Coolotta ($7.00) then made it a double when the three-year-old took out the Wagga Marketplace Benchmark 60 Handicap (1300m).

Paul Murray, who now runs the stable, dedicated this carnival to his late father and he could not have been prouder to grab three wins over the two big days.

“I am (proud), it’s great,” Murray said.

“It’s not just me though, it’s all the staff as well that have done a great job to have the horses ready to go.

“That’s three wins and three seconds so it’s been a pretty good couple of days.”

Coolotta won his maiden at Wagga in January, he then struck a wet track at Nowra, then went to the paddock for a freshen up after a disappointing run at Sapphire Coast on February 1.

Coolotta was set to go to Mudgee last week but ended up at Wagga and things turned out perfectly.

“He doesn’t like wet tracks,” he said.

“He was set to go to Mudgee last weekend but it was a wet track and we ended up scratching. It was only a five-horse field so we should have run there. We decided then to take him to Wagga and it’s worked out ok in the end.”

Coolotta held off the fast-finishing Le Cavalier ($3.80) by a head, with a further 2¼ lengths to The Big Rig ($7.00) in third place.

Murray admitted the win caught him by surprise.

“I thought he would run a good race,” he said.

“I thought he was a place chance. I didn’t think he would win.”

Murray has no big plans for the son of Oratorio.

“We’ll find another race for him,” he said.

“We will keep him to the dry tracks.”

Grant Buckley rode Coolotta to victory for his first win of the Wagga carnival.

Edie Murray, the wife of Bede, was in attendance at the carnival and celebrated the win with her son Paul.

Murray almost landed one of the features later in the day when Direct Strategy finished a game second in the $60,000 Wagga Guineas (1600m).