Australian Racing’s Hall of Fame jockey Robert Thompson will be riding at next Monday’s Cessnock race meeting.

It’s the second meeting of the Cessnock Winter Racing Carnival and the feature race is the Tooheys New Cessnock Cup.

Thompson was inducted into the Australian Racing Hall of Fame before a huge crowd including immediate family and close friends at a dinner in Brisbane last Thursday night.

An elated Thompson returned home to Cessnock on Saturday night after riding Big Money in the Group 1 Doomben 10,000.

“I haven’t settled on a mount in the Cessnock Cup yet but I am looking forward to the meeting,” Thompson said.

The champion jockey has ridden five Cessnock Cup winners – Rosie Heir in 1978, the cup’s first year, Full Alert (1983), Gay Scene (1987), Trevino (1991) and Hot Aussie (1995) – making it 20 years since he has ridden a winner.

Two of the Cup winners – Gay Scene and Trevino – were trained by Thompson’s late father Arthur.

Other Cessnock trainers to win the Cup include Beaney Jones (1978) and Kath Stewart (2001), while the last Cessnock-trained galloper to win was the Robert ‘Pud’ Davies-trained Planet Melmac in 2010.

Despite weekend rain and a heavy dew on race morning, the Cessnock track raced very well at the last meeting on May 19.

That meeting ended with a rare occurrence when a father-son combination took out the Cessnock Cup Prelude (the lead-up to the big race).

Craig Dwyer steered Dubai Dusk, trained by his father Mick, to a narrow win in the race, starting the second ranked outsider at $14.

Dubai Dusk, a 7-year-old gelding was coming off a 105 day break and proved too good for the well-supported runner-up Can Dominate with race favourite Winarvi filling third place.

In a day when favourites didn’t perform all that well, Charpenz, trained by Johnnie Roberts at Wyong took out the maiden at start number 20, returning $38.40 for the win, edging out the $2.80 favourite Torquay with the Kim Waugh-trained Berry Baby third.

Former Test cricketer and Australian selector Mark Waugh was at the Cessnock meeting to see his wife’s gallopers go around. The other runner, Bully Bully finished second.