Thomson hopes to create more links with Hedley

By Glenn Davis

It’s been two years since a serious injury forced Bonnie Thomson to eventually hang up her silks to concentrate on a training career.

Now the former jockey is hoping her full-time training career can gather momentum after linking with powerful North Queensland owner Tom Hedley.

A mother of three, Thomson has six horses in work including the Hedley-owned Better Show and Look ‘N’ Win.

Both were entered for Townsville on Tuesday but only debutant Look ‘N’ Win - a Sean Cormack mount - will start in the QTIS Two-Years-Old Maiden Plate over 1000 metres.

The pair was given to Thomson to train after champion North Queensland trainer Roy Chillemi decided to scale back his stable numbers.

“I was doing pre-training for Roy Chillemi and when he decided to cut his numbers back, Tom (Hedley) gave me these two horses to train as I had already been pre-training them,” Thomson said.

Thomson has been training since the 2018-19 season with a dual-licence before she handed in her jockeys’ licence last year to concentrate on training full-time.

She had a race fall in at Mackay two years ago which eventually led to her retirement from the saddle.

“I handed in my jockey’s licence last year to train full-time," she said. 

Look ‘N’ Win was well beaten in a field of three in her only barrier trial in Townsville last month.

A daughter of Winning Rupert, Look ‘N’ Win will be the second starter Thomson has had for Hedley who is arguably the biggest owner in North Queensland.

“I had a horse for Tom last year called Heroic Nic who was only a two-year-old but he wasn’t much of a performer and I started off pre-training him as well,” Thomson said.

“He also came from Roy and he only had a few starts for me.

“I just got a message last week from a friend who said Heroic Nic has just started a career doing dressage.

“Look ‘N’ Win has won a couple of jump-outs but she’s only tiny and I’d like to see her grow a bit more, so she’ll probably go out to the paddock soon."