The race was the feature on the second day of Newcastle Jockey Club's spring carnival and Yuralla Boy was backed from $12 into $9.

Given a peach of a ride by apprentice Mikayla Weir, Yuralla Boy beat Kris Lees-trained $1.75 favourite Continuation by a head.

Weir's master, Todd Howlett, trains the six-year-old for his uncle, Max Howlett, and the win was the gelding's seventh and took his prizemoney past $150,000. Yuralla Boy was bought for $12,000 at a Scone yearling sale.

Backers of Continuation could count themselves unlucky because jockey Aaron Bullock dropped his whip near the 100m mark.

Todd Howlett was at Randwick on Saturday with smart four-year-old Toto, which was third to It's Me in the Highway Handicap.

The Lower Belford trainer said Newcastle was the favourite track of Yuralla Boy, which had won three of five starts there.

"I wasn't that confident as he never gave a yelp in the Tuncurry Cup last week on a Soft 7," Howlett said.

"Yuralla Boy has performed well on good and dry tracks and today's track was perfect for him. I will take him back to Newcastle for a similar race in two week.

"Toto was unlucky not to finish second in the Highway and my Kosciuszko runner Two Big Fari trials at Newcastle on Wednesday."

Bullock, who was apprenticed to Howlett in his younger days, bounced back to finish the meeting with a double.

The Singleton boy got down to 57.5 kilograms to steer Wyong three-year-old Ushindi to a 4.5-length win in the 120m maiden plate.

Lees, who won his first Newcastle Gold Cup with Mugatoo on Friday, capped a successful carnival when $15 outsider Chalmers claimed the last event, a 1400m benchmark 68 handicap, with Bullock aboard. Legendary rugby league caller David Morrow is a part-owner of Chalmers, which has won close to $300,000.

The 2020 NJC spring carnival will go down as the most successful in recent years. The track played magnificently over the two days and some of Australia's leading trainers and jockeys were full of praise for the surface.

Randwick trainer John O'Shea called it the best track in NSW after his win in the Tibbie Stakes on Friday with All Saints' Eve.