Racing: Sandown winner gives training duo some good news

MELBOURNE - Training partners Bevan and Richard Laming landed successive Eclipse Stakes at Sandown when Bashful Girl won the group three event only a day after stewards charged them over an EPO-related investigation.

The father-and-son team won the Eclipse last year with Eskimo Dan and picked up Bashful Girl from the Brian Mayfield-Smith stable after her winter campaign.

Bred by Melbourne Racing Club committeeman Ian Macdonald, who races Bashful Girl with his wife and two other partners, the Perugino 5-year-old was having her fifth start for the Lamings on Saturday and landed her first black-type success.

Queensland-based Bevan Laming and his son Richard have to face charges regarding two of their horses, War Dancer and Benelli, returning positive swabs in what is Australia's first thoroughbred EPO case.

Both horses were found to have EPO in their system when randomly tested out of competition on June 11.

Benelli tested positive a second time when out of competition on July 2.

A date for the Racing Appeals hearing has yet to be set.

The Lamings won the Andrew Ramsden Stakes (3200m) at Flemington with another Macdonald-bred and raced horse, Phaze Action, in May which was their first feature win since setting up a state-of-the-art Victorian training base at Cranbourne.

"It's great, especially for the horse. She's been knocking on the door and a bit of black type is what we've been aiming at and to pull it off is terrific," Richard Laming said.

Bashful Girl ran a solid fifth to dual group one winner Purple at her previous start in the group two Matriarch Stakes (2000m) at Flemington on Emirates Stakes Day and Purple pushed Zipping when runner-up in last week's Sandown Classic (2400m).

"Her form has been terrific and that's why we decided to come here."

Ridden by Craig Newitt, Bashful Girl ($18) settled back midfield on the rail from barrier one in a fast-run race and held out Rose Syrah ($3.20 fav) by a long neck with Down Under Boy ($31) a length away third.

Meanwhile, Tesbury Jack, last in the Le Pine Funerals Cup, and Sermon, last in the Umrum Hcp (1500m), both bled and face mandatory three-month bans from racing.

- AAP