CRAIG Weeding and his fellow Wangaratta horse trainers excelled on the weekend.

Not only did Weeding train three winners on Saturday and one on Monday, but local horsemen combined for eight winners on Saturday.

Along with Weeding’s three at Balranald on Saturday, Andrew Dale grabbed one at Balranald and one at Albury, while Ben Brisbourne took out two races at Albury and Dan McCarthy won one.

Weeding’s Ashau Valley then saluted in race seven at Benalla on Monday to top a successful weekend off.

“I think they were all in their right grade and given good rides so there was nothing to complain about there,” Weeding said.

Weeding didn’t have to wait long for his three winners at Balranald as he claimed a race-to-race trifecta with Starsheena (race one) breaking her maiden, A Bit Racey (race two) claiming the benchmark 58 and Misil Cadente (race three) saluting in the maiden.

“Starsheena’s an interesting one because she’s six-years-old but has only had eight starts,” he said.

“She’s had a few issues and needed time to develop but she’s ran some nice races in those few starts.

“We took her to Balranald to build some confidence after having some bad luck the start before and it paid off.”

Ashau Valley then followed his stablemates on Monday when he took out race seven’s benchmark 64 (1406m) at big odds at Benalla.

“We thought he’d be looking for further but we were happy with how he was going,” Weeding said.

“We did think he might’ve been a little up against it in a pretty good field for a Monday.

“We made the plan to ride him a bit quieter and then hit the line well and that’s what happened so we’ll now look to step him up in trip in the coming weeks.”

Weeding’s enjoyed an excellent start to the 2024/25 season recording 14 winners at a strike rate of 15 per cent.

“We’re happy with the start, especially knowing that we’ve got a big team brewing behind the scenes,” he said.

“We’ve got some nice horses racing at the moment but another group will kick off their campaigns in the next few weeks.”

Weeding’s got a huge week ahead, headlined by stable star Prince of Helena running in the $3 million Big Dance at Randwick on Tuesday’s Melbourne Cup Day.