Newcastle Knights win and so does Dolly

Some of the owners of three year old filly Riverleigh Dolly had two reasons to cheer on Sunday when the daughter of leading harness racing sire Somebeachsomewhere and the Newcastle Knights broke through for important much needed wins. Riverleigh Dolly won the first race of her short career at Muswellbrook's Carnival Of Cups meeting while the Knights brought up their first victory of the season against the Wests Tigers.

Riverleigh Dolly is raced by nine people with trainer Clayton Harmey confirming he formed the group with some long term clients and a few first time owners.

"A group of guys who work for the Newcastle Knights, including the NSW Cup Knights coach Matt Lantry approached me about finding them a horse so I asked another couple of my owners to join the group and I went out in search of a horse for them," Harmey said.

"I found Riverleigh Dolly, she was racing in Queensland, I thought her runs had merit and more importantly she was very well bred so she was the perfect horse."

Sunday's win was the filly's seventh run for the new connections and Harmey admitted her first win took a little longer than he had expected.

"She ran five placings in her first six starts for me and I think everyone was getting a little bit frustrated with getting so close and not winning but she had run some great races. She ran second in 1:55.6 at Newcastle behind one of John Tapp's horses (Heavenly Smile) and maiden three-old-fillies don't go much faster.

"We went to Muswellbrook for the heat last week and she drew outside another of my horses and couldn't cross at the start, I told the boys it was just matter of her drawing a good gate in the final and when she did I thought she would be very hard to beat."

Riverleigh Dolly worked forward and took the front off Scottish Duchess before racing away to win by more than eight metres.

"She is not one of the overly big Somebeachsomewhere's, she is a nice sized filly and I think she is only going to get better with a bit of time.

"She's doing a great job and I think winning the race will do her the world of good, she rated 2:00.8 around Muswellbrook and that is a very good effort."

Riverleigh Dolly is eligible for next month's Group One Qbred Triad 3yo Fillies Final but would need to win some more races to guarantee a start.

"I need to check what other races she is eligible for because while I think she would need to continue improving I think with a good barrier and soft run she would be competitive against the better fillies.

"She did run second behind Rockmemama first up and that filly went to Bathurst and won the Gold Bracelet so I think she's going to do a good job."

Riverleigh Dolly was the second leg of a winning double for Harmey as Courageous Emm won race three.

"Funnily enough I bought them as a package, Courageous Emm has done really good since he arrived. He is now a C8/M1 so it is going to get hard to place him.

"He spent some time in Sydney and found it a little bit tough so I'll just have to work out where to take him but it was good to see him win again.

Greg Hayes