Racing: Cooksley and the Logans inaugural Auckland Cup award winners

Auckland's Grant Cooksley and Northlanders Donna and Dean Logan are the winners of the riding and training awards from the inaugural Auckland Cup week.

Cooksley won the Grenville Hughes award for jockeys after riding four winners during the three-day carnival, and the Logans won the Ritchie-Verner trophy for trainers with three wins.

Cooksley went without a winner on the first day of the carnival but won twice on Wednesday and on Saturday. His Wednesday victories were Birthday Hill and The Silence Sir, and on Saturday he won with Waikeepadacash and Foursfield.

He was one win clear of three riders - Lisa Cropp, who had led after two days, Jason Waddell and Catherine Treymane.

The Logans were level with the partnerships of Richard Collett-Shane Hapeta of Pukekohe and Stephen and Trevor McKee of Ardmore on two wins going into Saturday's card and pulled ahead when Aftershock won a 2100m special conditions maiden.

The Northlanders had won twice the previous Saturday with Zabeat and Ring Of Fire. Zabeat nearly made it four wins for the Logans after just being beaten by Pentane in the Auckland Cup on Wednesday.

The two trophies were introduced by the Auckland Racing Club for the first time this year with the cup carnival being shifted from Christmas-New Year to March.

* Among the excited winners at Ellerslie on Saturday, there was none more overjoyed than Louisa Dempsey, who won the $25,000 diamond given away by the ARC and Graeme Thomson Antique Jewellery.

If Dempsey was upset about this being her first social engagement since breaking up with her boyfriend it didn't show.

She was selected by a panel of judges as one of 13 racegoers who each drew a horse in the $150,000 Ford Diamond Stakes.

Dempsey drew Jokers Wild and after the temperamental colt put on an attention-grabbing performance, Dempsey reacted in kind.

- NZPA, staff reporter