Horse Racing
27 May, 2026
Thompson's Wimmera triumphs roll on
A week after scoring her second career win, which itself came hot on the heels of her first, Chelsea Thompson has had another blinding day out at a Wimmera racecourse.
At Stawell on Monday, May 18, Thompson took the honours for group one trainer Jamie Edwards and his team at the Emsley Lodge stables near Geelong.
The victory at Stawell was the 21-year-old's fourth since May 4, when the apprentice jockey rode her maiden winner at Kilmore.
On the Kilmore track, she has now won twice in a fortnight on Come Along Jeffrey (also trained by Edwards) – on May 4 and again last Friday – and, sandwiched between them, she notched up her first-ever Wimmera success aboard Tori's Dee at Ararat on May 9.
Mounting up on Tori's Dee for another start on Monday, Thompson repeated the pair's Ararat result, leading the field home by half a length.
"Chelsea’s four-kilo allowance has been invaluable and provided much-needed weight relief for both veteran gallopers," Edwards said of her recent efforts on his charges.
“These are the horses four-kilo kids should be riding.
“You have just got to do the basics: you get them out of the gates well, you rate them, and then from the 600m mark home, you ride them like you just stole them.”
Thompson has now ridden Tori's Dee four times for two impressive wins.
"He hadn’t won for two years when he held on to score at Ararat on May 9 and in Monday’s Manhari BM56 Handicap over 1100m saved a heap of ground on the rails, skipping away at the 400m and leading by as much as four lengths in the straight," Edwards said.
Previously, in their first two outings, Thompson and Tori's Dee finished a creditable fifth from 10 starters at Geelong on April 10 and fourth from 13 at Moe on April 25.
After her most recent race, Thompson said of the veteran grey gelding: "He’s such an honest old horse.
"He just puts them away so easily.
"He’s great. I love him."
Thompson is currently spending three months based in the Wimmera with Stawell trainer Dane Smith.
"There are plenty of kids out there to choose from (but) being apprenticed to Dane, she is always going to learn a lot,” Edwards said.
Thompson rounded out Monday afternoon at Stawell by finishing second in the final race of the day, race 9, on Catch A Break.
And her big week didn't end there: on Tuesday, Thompson picked up a third on another Wimmera track, Horsham, where she rode New Zealand-bred gelding The Mariner for Stephen Lenehan.
Horsham's Dean Yendall won race 3 on Call Me Rhonda, trained by Jarrod Robinson, and race 4, riding Epoch from the stables of Matthew Williams at Warrnambool, after earlier crossing the line third in races 1 and 2 on Apache Sunrise and Discover Lupino, respectively.
Yendall picked up the ride in race 3 at the last minute after Will Gordon failed to make weight.
Among local trainers, Grampians Racing's Andrew Bobbin collected a second in race 5 with the perfectly named Path To Victory.