17 December, 2011
Lance Justice experienced the most satisfying win to a deflating week when Smoken Up broke through for his biggest hometown win in Saturday night’s $425,000 Group 1 SEW-Eurodrive Victoria Cup (2240m) at Melton’s Tabcorp Park. Just over 24 hours after being officially stripped of his Inter...
09 December, 2011
For not the first time in her celebrated career mighty Strathfieldsaye mare Make Mine Cullen is doing it for the girls. Already a noted trailblazer as the first Kilmore Cup winning mare in history last year, the superstar six-year-old is at it again this weekend. Drawn ideally in one for tomorrow night’s...
06 December, 2011
Champion pacer Im Themightyquinn has landed barrier four for his Group 1 Decron Pacing Cup defence at Cranbourne this Saturday night. Freakish when reeling off one of Tabcorp Park’s fastest ever final halves in last weekend’s Popular Alm FFA, Gary Hall’s 7-time Group 1 winner was one...
02 December, 2011
It’s a cliché, but the SEW-Eurodrive Victoria Cup Carnival was the big winner following the running of the $30,000 Popular Alm Free-For-All at Melton’s Tabcorp Park on Friday night. Popular gelding Melpark Major made a welcome return to the feature-race winner’s stall, West Australian...
19 December, 2010
Not for the first time, the $40,000 VHRSC Victoria Sires Classic may have unearthed a superstar of the future following the brilliant win of Keayang Cullen tonight at Tabcorp Park, Melton. Unraced less than 90 hours before the race which has thrown up winners such as Lombo Pocket Watch and Bonavista...
18 December, 2010
The legend and legacy of Australia’s most decorated trotter of the modern era was afforded another chapter at Tabcorp Park tonight when superstar squaregaiter Sundons Gift won his fourth consecutive SEW-Eurodrive Australian Trotting Grand Prix. Now the owner of almost half the 10 Group 1 Grands...
17 December, 2010
While most of the Yankee flavoured money wagered on Saturday night’s SEW-Eurodrive Victoria Cup will go around with 2006 Little Brown Jug champion Mr Feelgood, an even more recent American expat will take on the $425,000 feature alongside him. One of only two runners in the race responsible for...
17 December, 2010
Saturday night’s $425,000 SEW-Eurodrive Victoria Cup is the jewel in Harness Racing Victoria’s December carnival, but it’s not just the established stars who will be in action at Melton’s Tabcorp Park. Some potential Barastoc Grand Circuit heroes of the future will step out in...
16 December, 2010
As a frenetic fortnight of elite level Victorian harness racing approaches its stunning climax this Saturday night at Tabcorp Park, once again the TAB have come to the party, lining up two sensational jackpots for multiple players. Seeding what looks a sensational Quaddie at Victorian harness headquarters...
16 December, 2010
If the picket fence formline and peerless race record weren’t enough to convince critics that superstar squaregaiter Sundons Gift was set for victory in Saturday night’s $125,000 Group 1 Australian Trotting Grand Prix, then Tuesday’s revelation of his gate four draw certainly was. Pursuing...
15 December, 2010
1) Melpark Major: “It’s only 2200 (metres), so you’d have to think the barrier’s going to make a difference. Some of those wide draws; you’ve got no hope. He’ll be quick enough to hold the lead perhaps until the first turn, then you’ve got to think do we keep...
15 December, 2010
It’s a good thing Mark Purdon has a massive opinion of I Can Doosit and The Sleepy Tripp, otherwise the top Kiwi trainer might be forgiven for abandoning his trip across for Saturday night’s Group 1s at Tabcorp Park, Melton. The five-year-olds could hardly have been handed worse barriers...
15 December, 2010
After a crippling pair of gate eight draws since leaving his new home in the Sunshine State, the worm finally appears to have turned for former Australian Horse of the Year Mr Feelgood and his mellow mentor Luke McCarthy ahead of Saturday night’s Group 1 SEW-Eurodrive Victoria Cup at Tabcorp Park....
15 December, 2010
Outright favourite Mr Feelgood has been declared fit to run in Saturday night’s SEW-Eurodrive Victoria Cup after a precautionary vet check yesterday. The former Australian Horse of the Year galloped towards the end of last weekend’s Decron Cranbourne Pacing Cup but will be a definite starter...
15 December, 2010
Saturday night’s $425,000 Group 1 SEW-Eurodrive Victoria Cup is worth more than four times last week’s Decron Cranbourne Cup, but connections of Im Themightyquinn will go home content even if he doesn’t win. The Western Australian gelding broke gun trainer Gary Hall’s eastern-states...
13 December, 2010
The seductive spectre of breaking their own astonishing Inter Dominion record is the reason why Tamborine trainer Natalie Rasmussen and her evergreen champion Blacks A Fake were a shock omission from final nominations for the Group 1 $425,000 SEW-Eurodrive Victoria Cup Monday morning. While all who saw...
12 December, 2010
Sensational Sandgroper Im Themightyquinn erased almost 12 months of bad Victorian memories and incontrovertibly proved that the best from the West can match it anywhere in Australia with a stunning sprint lane success in the $100,000 Group 1 Decron Cranbourne Pacing Cup on Saturday night. Desperately...
12 December, 2010
The greatest trotter of this generation completed his classic curriculum vitae Saturday night when superstar Nagambie squaregaiter Sundons Gift claimed the $60,000 Group 1 Bill Collins Trotters Mile at Cranbourne to kick of the Victoria Cup carnival of 2010 in grand style. The only Australian major to...
10 December, 2010
Having kicked off his career in North America before a short tenure across the Tasman and finally finding a home in the Sunshine State here in Australia, Mr Feelgood is what most would consider a standardbred citizen of the world. But despite his advancing years, it would appear there is little rush...
10 December, 2010
Of the myriad and multitudinous advantages inherent to training a living legend, surely none could be greater than the soothing of stress usually synonymous with big race riches ahead of what might otherwise be a once-in-a-lifetime chance at Group 1 glory. That is why for Chris Lang and his dual Inter...
09 December, 2010
After what has felt like an eternity of waiting the SEW-Eurodrive Victoria Cup is finally here, with the frenetic fortnight of elite level harness racing set to kick off at Cranbourne for the very first time. And to celebrate the assembly of the finest field in Decron Cranbourne Cup history, the TAB...
09 December, 2010
Spruiked since becoming Chariots of Fire champion in July as the fastest rising star in Australian harness racing, flying Monegeetta five-year-old Villagem has only fortified the fears of his Grand Circuit rivals in three runs this term. Simply breathtaking when putting an outstanding field of rivals...
09 December, 2010
Billed as the much anticipated maiden clash between the champion and the challenger – the master and the apprentice – last month’s NSW Trotters Mile at Menangle certainly didn’t disappoint. Separated by just 1.5 metres – and more than a cricket pitch clear of their closest...
09 December, 2010
From his vantage point more than 500 miles south of Australia’s greatest sprint race almost a fortnight ago, brilliant Bacchus Marsh horseman Alan Tubbs must have harboured mixed emotions indeed. Having failed to secure an invite to the Miracle Mile with his renascent superstar Melpark Major, Tubbs...
08 December, 2010
Still sailing on cloud nine following Smoken Up’s career defining Miracle Mile victory at Menangle last month, candid conditioner Lance Justice is seeing the world though rose coloured glasses. So when he and his stable star drew gate 12, both behind and outside every runner in their pursuit for...
08 December, 2010
Ace Western Australian trainer Gary Hall hasn’t only had to worry about his horses fretting on plane trips east in the past, he’s also had the concern of how his son gets on. Gary Hall Jnr is the stable driver and his serious fear of flying was once so bad that he has backed out of flights...
07 December, 2010
Boasting Group 1 status, a $100,000 purse and pride of place on the Australian racing calendar as the flagship feature of the Victoria Cup carnival’s opening night for the first time ever, the Decron Cranbourne Pacing Cup of 2010 was always set to be the greatest in history. But following the barrier...
04 December, 2010
With a handful of Australasia’s finest pacers taking time in lieu and the greatest of them all set to start in Bankstown’s Treuer Memorial 24 hours later Tabcorp Park played host to just two bona fide headline horses ahead of what looms as the greatest SEW-Eurodrive Victoria Cup carnival...
02 December, 2010
As she closes like a hurricane on a female world record of 3000 successes in the sulky, it is indeed hard to believe that Australia’s most decorated reinswoman and now elite conditioner Kerryn Manning could ever qualify as a silent assassin. But with Victoria’s finest squaregaiting features...
02 December, 2010
Rejuvenated Victorian pacer The Gunstar may not have raced under Dean Braun’s banner during his recent renaissance throughout the Miracle Mile carnival at Menangle, but nobody was more thrilled to see him finally fulfil his awesome potential. Sent to New South Wales and the tutelage of David Thorn...
02 December, 2010
Safe in the knowledge that his magnificent mare Make Mine Cullen has found a home at the highest level of harness racing following her slashing fifth in last week’s Miracle Mile at Menangle, star Strathfieldsaye mentor Glenn Douglas is now fully focussed on her next major challenge. But with more...
02 December, 2010
As a four time Inter Dominion winner with a rap sheet as long as his impressive wither and charisma to burn, Blacks A Fake hogs headlines almost as often as he takes out Australia’s greatest and most revered races. So it is indeed understandable that ahead of this Saturday night’s time honoured...
22 November, 2010
With the Victoria Cup carnival less than three weeks away, leading Kiwi conditioner Mark Purdon has fired the first salvo from across the ditch, declaring his two highest profile horses will be traversing the Tasman to take us on. Flying five-year-old Sleepy Tripp – the hard luck horse from Addington’s...
