Tamworth Country Championships Qualifier: Rod Northam-trained Spiranac wins

The 24-year-old has been a revelation in the past six months or so and he returned to the scene of his first ever winner on Sunday to post the biggest victory of his career to date.

It was a patient and calculated ride from Jones on Sunday as he worked the four-year-old through the field and hit the lead in the shadows to down the Cameron Crockett-trained Pure Fuego with Luke Morgan's Depth That Varies coming from last to run third.

Northam has been placed in two Country Championships Finals - Voodoo Lad ran third in 2015 and After All That second in 2017 - but Spiranac could well be his best chance of claiming the $500,000 event at Royal Randwick on April 3.

"He's ice cold. I was panicking getting to the 600m,'' Northam said of Jones.

"Where he's come from in four years - he couldn't put a head collar on a horse, after six months I asked him who the Slipper winner was and he didn't know.

"I said to him once 'you're not going to make it'. He's a little legend and he's ridden that a treat. Bring on Sydney."

Northam said the mare, named after former American golfer and social media star Paige Spiranac, will be hard to beat if she can strike a good surface.

Spiranac's major lead-up to Sunday's qualifier was in the Group 3 Triscay Stakes at Randwick but she couldn't produce her best on a very wet track.

"She'll be fourth up, Randwick will suit her,'' Northam said.

"She didn't handle it the other day when it was shifty, she doesn't like shifty ground, but if she gets a good track I can't see why she won't be in the finish."

It's been a big week for Jones who posted his first metropolitan winner at Warwick Farm on Wednesday - Kosciusko for Jim and Greg Lee - and his association with Spiranac made the moment special.

"She's a lovely ride. Even in trackwork she's beautiful to do anything with,'' Jones said.

"She has a bit of attitude about her but she's been a great horse to me."

The win took Jones' record on Spiranac to five wins and a second from six rides and he has a compelling case to retain the ride in the final.

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Northam said it'd be hard to remove Jones from the saddle but will confirm with stewards whether the apprentice can take the ride before confirming anything.

As for the race, Jones said he wasn't quite as concerned as Northam was in the run.

"She has been a bit slow away lately but I gave her a squeeze out so she didn't miss it,'' he said.

"I was able to switch her off, at the top of the straight I was trying to weave a passage to get out because I knew she would be strong to the line."

Cameron Crockett thought Pure Fuego was a horse for next year's Country Championships series but is rapt to qualify the lightly raced four-year-old for 2021.

It was the gelding's seventh race start and Crockett said if he can draw a favourable barrier in the Final he'd head to Randwick confident he will be competitive.

"He's very immature, he's still quite slight, this preparation he's just gone from strength to strength,'' Crockett said.

"He's been at his peak from his second run and hasn't taken a backward step once.

"He has great fitness on his side so four weeks into the final will be ideal and we might find a trial for him somewhere."

As for the rest of the meeting, Cody Morgan tasted the most success with a treble.

Cosmic Bullet won the second race and Casino Lord took out the last but the win of Levi's Storm in the opener was the biggest of them all.

Levi's Storm won by six lengths under the guidance of Dylan Gibbons - who didn't finish the meeting after he was dislodged from his horse after the winning post in race four. He was conscious and transported to Tamworth Hospital in a neck brace and on a spinal board for precautionary reasons.

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