Ellen Bartley and Blake Jones will have a strong hand at Wagga's Christmas Party meeting after success at Riverina Paceway.
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The Coleambally couple claimed one of the two heats on Friday as Rocky Branach upstaged his rivals.
They also finished second with Hunza Valley in the other.
Jones was pleased with the pair.
"The mare (Hunza Valley) was probably a little bit unlucky as it is probably as good as she has ever gone leading up," Jones said.
"She never really does much out of the gate but got out good and had her chance in front but the other one was just a bit too good."
Hunza Valley ($16) was just gunned down by $2.80 favourite Miss Angelic, falling by a head.
Rocky Branach ($7) then did the opposite in the following race, chasing down $1.45 favourite My Casino Belle to win by a head.
After causing a false start and then finishing towards the tail of the field when resuming last time out, Jones was much happier with the four-year-old this time around.
"The other fella had every chance from his run," he said.
"He lobbed perfectly and everything went to plan for him.
"You couldn't really ask for a much better run and he just had to pop out at the top of the straight and the leader had done a bit of work early.
"Everything worked out well."
The $8670 final will be one of the features next Saturday.
Meanwhile Rory McLory returned to winning ways for the first time in over four years after breaking through for new trainer Philp Bryce.
In just his second start for the Wagga trainer, Rory McLory scored his first win in his last 61 starts.
However overall it was a day out for visiting stables.
Amanda Turnbull took out the Evolution Series heat with the Victorian based Joonior Brown while Southern Highlands trainers James Rattray and Sam Hewitt both snared doubles.
Rattray won with Bonacci and Ideal Fantasy, who was driven to victory by former Junee reinsman Chris Judd, while Hewitt tasted success with Miss Angelic and Muscle Mach.
It was the club's first meeting since remediation work on the surface.
Around 900 tonne of grit was added to hope assist with the affects the unusually high clay count has when the track is wet.
It was a dusty surface on Friday.
Jones believes the benefit of the work won't be known until rain hits.
"It wasn't too bad but it is hard to see if it is going to be good in the wet at the moment," he said.
"We will have to find that out when it happens but it seemed pretty good and they seemed to be running along pretty good on it."
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