CANBERRA trainer Matthew Dale enhanced his brilliant Wagga strike rate with a winning double on Australia Day.
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Dale brought just two runners to Murrumbidgee Turf Club and both got the cash as well-supported favourites.
Propose To Me ($1.30) got home by a nose to win the Riverina Plaster Works Class Two Handicap (1400m), before Molly Nails ($1.85) gapped her rivals by seven and a half lengths to win the Sky Call Lawn Feb 20 Maiden Plate (1200m).
Dale has grand plans for both winners.
Propose To Me, a winner of three of her five starts, will now head to the Nowra heat of the Country Championships next month.
"She's deserved a crack at that. Lightly raced, on the way up, good speed. Will she be seasoned enough for it? Not really sure but she's earned a crack at it," Dale said.
Propose To Me downed a game Hot Bahama ($7.50) by a nose, with The Chaplain ($12) closing well for third.
Dale believes the best is still to come from Propose To Me.
"She's still a mare that's very raw and working it out. She doesn't know how to let down and put them away so she'll actually be better in a race with more tempo and she can be ridden in her comfort zone and she can track into it on her terms and get there a bit later," Dale said.
"She's still very, very new. She's won three races from a handful of starts but still I see nowhere near the finished product. They're the ones you don't mind seeing them still win but they do things wrong because you can see okay, that's where the next couple of lengths are coming from. That's still there with her, we've just got to keep trying to get the penny to drop without overdoing it because she can be quite a hot mare."
Molly Nails, who broke through at her second start, is on the Canberra Guineas path.
She was still green but won running away from Mittata ($8.00) and Carnival Miss ($21).
"She's the right style of filly. She's got the pedigree and she's got the progression and that's the first box ticked," Dale said.
Both winners were ridden by Blaike McDougall.
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