IT may have been nearly 700 days between winning drinks for Xtra Approval when winning at Port Macquarie last month, but the six-year-old made it a race-to-race double taking the $40,000 Akubra Hats Kempsey Cup on Friday 8 November.

By Newhaven Park’s New Zealand-bred Peintre sire Xtravagant, Xtra Approval was watched by almost 2440 people who flocked to the Kempsey Cup races to cheer on the gelding which was ridden by the district’s popular apprentice hoop, Siena Grima.

It was an emotional victory for Taree-based conditioner Tony Ball, being his first Kempsey Cup win, 11 years after his since passed Dad – a veteran trainer at the now defunct Gladstone track for 64 years – prepared Villamill to win the 2013 Kempsey Cup.

“He is a good little horse,” said Ball’s wife Barbara after the win.

“We actually retired him, then brought him back to help with the (educating of the) two-year-olds, but then decided to keep him going,” Barbara said.

“We only paid about $5000 or $6000 for him, and now he’s earned over $200,000.”

Bought from Rockhampton as a tried three-year-old, Xtra Approval has won seven races including a TAB Highway Handicap in Sydney for the Ball family, and which is raced along with Taree enthusiasts Jeff Haisell and wife Anne, and Jeff’s brother Garry Haisell and wife Renee.

Last season’s top winning country jockey, Aaron Bullock rode a winning treble, while Grima also rode the last race winner aboard the Tas Morton, Port Macquarie-trained Shamus Award mare The Coat Hanger.

By Virginia HARVEY