Hawkes heading for the dole queue!

JOHN Hawkes said yesterday there was nothing sinister in his walking away from training at Crown Lodge in Sydney for Bob Ingham, Australia's biggest owner, reports The Age.

It reports: "It is just time to move," Hawkes said of the November separation announced on Wednesday. "I'll keep training in Melbourne and Sydney if I can get some stables."

After his usual early-morning supervision of trackwork at Warwick Farm, Hawkes added a throw-away line: "If I can't get stables, I will go on the dole." That, of course, is the longest of longshots because Hawkes already trains for other owners on Ingham property and he will have a ready-made client source.

"I can't dwell on it too much," Hawkes said of his decision. "I've got a lot of work to do in the next few months. We've worked pretty well as a team. Hopefully, we can finish it off in the spring, too, which would be great. There's no dramas; I just want to move on, that's all, it's just a good handover period."