Croydon horse trainer Mario Stella is already counting down the days to December 2017.
For the last two years his pacers, Greenough and Feel The Buzz, have collected wins at the December Warragul trots meeting.
The pair’s victories again at last Wednesday’s successful Christmas meeting gave reinsman Matt Ablett his first driving double in the process.
Ablett has been involved with horses for many years as a hobby, juggling driving commitments with a night-shift job.
He drives several horses for trainers at the Croydon community stable facility, and rated both winners on Wednesday extremely well.
Gippsland horses were to the fore on Wednesday – Drouin West trainer Gary Quinlan landed two wins for the afternoon with locally owned trotter Omy Son and pacer Toscas Delight.
Clyde pacer Hurricane Stride won the final event, the third leg of a driving treble for premier reinsman Chris Alford, who also drove the pair of Quinlan winners.
Steve Austen is a fairly recent addition to local training ranks, now preparing a small team from a property at Labertouche.
He is a past graduate of the Gippsland Harness Training Centre and produced the winner of the day’s first race, Sammy Seelster.
Well handed by young reinsman Darby McGuigan, Sammy Seelster swept to the lead approaching the home turn and scored an easy win.
Austen revealed after the race, however, that the win almost didn’t happen – he had great difficulty loading Sammy Seelster on to the float for the trip to the races and was just about set to scratch the horse.
He rang McGuigan, on his way to the course, and the reinsman detoured via Labertouche, providing an extra pair of hands to guide the horse on to the float safely in time for the race.
Kilmore reinsman Aussie Mifsud returned to the winners list in the fourth event, driving The Loustar to a long-priced victory for trainer Phillip Walters.
Football legend Bill Brownless was the headline act off the track on Wednesday, mingling with a big weekday crowd and handling duties on the microphone in his usual larrikin manner.
Brownless has been engaged to promote various harness racing events in Victoria over the 2016/2017 racing season, and his appearance at Warragul certainly boosted the success of the event.
Racing returns to Warragul on Wednesday, January 18.
Approved By Dean Baring www.harnessbred.com
Driving The Future Of Harness Racing
