SUNDAY: July 19, 2026: BRAD Widdup didn’t mess about clinching back to back trainers’ premierships at home today.

Hawkesbury’s leading trainer began the final meeting of the season tied with Chris Waller on 14 wins, and sealed the result when he won the opener on the seven-race program.

And for good measure he added another three races later to boost his local number of winners for the 2025-26 racing year to 16.

In the process the home track double lifted Brad’s overall number of winners for the season to 64, bettering last year’s 63.

He won the Essential Asset & Fire CG&E Maiden Plate (1100m) with the promising Hong Kong-owned Viva Macaco ($3), and Richmond Club Class 1/Maiden Plate (2000m) with Longinus ($13).

Chad Schofield rode Viva Macaco, and Andrew Adkins had the mount on Longinus.

Brad (with 15 wins) won last season’s premiership by two wins, and it was the same outcome again.

“It’s very satisfying for a Hawkesbury trainer to win our home track premiership against all comers two years in a row,” he said this evening.

“A great result for my family, staff and owners.”

Brad, however, is resigned to losing Viva Macaco, who was a $375,000 purchase by George Moore Bloodstock at last year’s Inglis Australian Easter yearling sale, overseas.

“I have qualified him to go to Hong Kong, and expect he will go there now,” he said.

“Viva Macaco is a nice young horse with a bright future.

“I also qualified Levelling Up for Hong Kong by winning with the three-year-old son of Maurice at Newcastle’s Beaumont track last December.”

Brad had an interesting tale to tell about five-year-old Longinus, who came to him in 2024 from a leading Sydney stable after four trials but without racing.

“I won a 1400m Maiden at Canberra with him at his third start for me, but found I couldn’t train him properly last preparation,” he said.

“He just wasn’t right, and the owners were good enough to get a scintigraphy done, and it showed a hot spot in Longinus’ neck.

“Obviously it had been troubling him for some time, and the problem was treated with cortisone and it has done the trick.

“It was bizarre, but he is going well now and this was his first try at 2000m, so it augurs well for his future middle-distance racing.”

Whilst Brad was understandably pleased with his wins, he was disappointed not going home with a treble, rating runner-up Seven Days ($3.50 favorite) as very unlucky in the St Johns Park Bowling Club Benchmark 64 Handicap (1100m).

The RacingNSW stewards’ report told the story.

“Approaching the 300m Seven Days was disappointed for a run to the inside of Light Infantry, which shifted in,” the report read.

“Approaching the 250m, when being shifted to the outside of Silk Lace to obtain clear running, became awkwardly placed on that runner’s heels.”

Along with Brad’s premiership clinching double, Hawkesbury’s Family Funday at the end of the winter school holidays proved a bonanza for provincial trainers, who all but scooped the program, winning six of the seven races.