Ballarat jockey Lee Horner made Grand National Steeplechase day is own on his home track on Sunday.
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Horner captured each of the three feature events at Sportsbet Ballarat.
He began the jumps season finale with a win on Flying Agent for his wife and trainer Amy McDonald in the $50,000 Sportsbet Gotta Take Care Hurdle, 4000m, and then saluted on Instigator in the $125,000 Ecycle Solutions JJ Houlahan Hurdle, 3200m, and Bee Tee Junior in the $350,000 Grand National Steeplechase, 4500m.
Bee Tee Junior ($2.90) out-stayed hot favourite Ablaze ($2), which was unbeaten in five starts over the obstacles going into Australia's richest jumps race.
The New Zealand-bred nine-year-old charged away from Ablaze by nine lengths on the heavy10 track, Michelin ($9) was third for trainer Patrick Payne, who had won the classic for the past two years.
Trained by Rachael Cunningham at Pakenham, it was Bee Tee Junior's first steeplechase start and came after a second in the Grand National Hurdle.
Horner said he was elated with the win on Bee Tee Junior.
"I can't really believe it actually," Horner said.
"I won a South Australian Grand National for my wife, but this is the pinnacle. It's worth a lot more money as well which is good.
"(I'm) just really elated to do it for nice people as well, which is more important than anything and on a horse that they adore," he said.
Horner said Cunningham was a best friend and yet he had never ridden for them before linking up with Bee Tee Junior.
"Amy and Lee are some of our best friends so we had so much confidence in the way that Lee was riding and that he'd make the right choices."
Cunningham said thre had been a lot of naysayers saying they were being ambitious to put Bee Tee Junior in the Grand National without previous steeplechase experience, but it had paid off.
Ballarat-based Declan Maher trained his first jumps winner with Ascot Red ($2.60) in the Ecycle Solutions Benchmark120 Steeplechase, 3200m.
Ascot Red was having just his fourth start for Maher.
- McDonald gets hometown feature win, page 22