11 February 2020 | MICHAEL HEATON
Dual-licenced harness and thoroughbred trainer Matthew Scott scored a sentimental win for his connections on February 1 when his progressive pacer, Son Of A Tiger, bounced back to best form to take out the $30,000 Group 3 Northam Cup (2560m).
The feature race success is another new achievement for the multi-code horseman after he joined an elite group to have trained a winner in two different codes on the same day on January 19.
Scott, 42, is a well-liked and down-to-earth bloke who was born into the harness industry as a fourth-generation trainer-driver.
However, that hasn’t stopped him delving into uncharted territory by adding gallopers to his band of racehorses in more recent times, despite not having any experience with thoroughbreds beforehand.
“Dad was a hobby trainer and the president of the WATA for about eight years,” Scott said.
“My grandfather was a trainer-driver and the foreman for the Porter stable, a very big stable back in the 1950s.
“My great-grandfather was Les Turvey and that’s how it all started.
“He was a trainer-driver in the 1940s and had a fair few city winners.
“A lot of people tell me he went pretty well in the day.”
Scott is the eldest of four children to Garry, a tax accountant by trade, and his wife Janine, and grew up at his father’s Orange Grove stables that were leased from prominent trainer Ross Olivieri in the 1980s.
Aside from helping out with typical stable duties during his early childhood, however, Scott didn’t take a keen interest in the sport until he saw a race meeting firsthand.
“Dad never pushed us as kids,” he said.
“Then when were at the Busselton trots one night and the pony trots were on and I said to Dad, ‘I wouldn’t mind doing this’.
“When we came home, Dad got talking to the neighbour who said, ‘I know where a little stray grey pony is that’s ended up at a bloke’s farm and he wants $40 for it’.
“We ended up getting the pony and Dad broke him in at Olivieri’s stables and called him ‘Roadrunner’.
“My brothers, sister and I all learnt to drive on that pony and we all raced him through the pony trots.
“When he died, we ended up cremating him and the ashes sat in Mum and Dad’s dining room because the pony meant that much to the family.”
As the harness bug slowly started to get hold of him, Scott began driving his father’s pacers in jog-work at the age of 12 and, over the next three years, he went on to compete in multiple Ponies Inter Dominions across Australia.
He commenced his official race-driving career following his 16th birthday in 1993, whilst also completing high school, before enrolling in an Advance Diploma of Accounting at Thornlie TAFE.
Despite a promising start to his studies, however, he says it wasn’t meant to be.
“It was a two-year full-time course and I did the first year full-time at Thornlie,” Scott said.
“Then one of Dad’s staff left so I said, ‘let me work here, I’ll train a few more horses and study part-time’.
“My parents hesitantly agreed to let me do it and, to cut a long story short, I never finished off that accounting diploma.
“I did everything bar two units.”
Scott started training pacers from his father’s stable at the age of 18 before later relocating to a Cannington premises that he shared with fellow trainer-driver, Nathan Turvey.
However, his new training base would soon be sold for housing developments, prompting Scott to make a return to his parent’s property until a similar story occurred.
“I had about 10 horses there at Dad’s, but it was a residential area and it was getting quite built out,” Scott said.
“So, I bit the bullet and bought a property in Serpentine when I was 30 and I’ve been there 12 years now.
“We’ve got our own jog track and 12-box barns now after I built it virtually like Garry Hall’s.
“One of my uncles did all of the concreting, the other one got me all my boards for my stables, my grandfather was out here oiling up the poles and Mum and Dad were down here on weekends for three months.
“Then I started building some paddocks as I went and started winning a few more races and making some money.”
Whilst Scott’s training numbers have grown significantly over the past decade, part of the spike has been due to an unexpected venture into thoroughbred racing.
He recalls a social gathering leading to his introduction to the sport that he is now firmly part of and the rest, as they say, is history.
“I had a share in a horse called Hide The Loot that David Harrison trained,” he said.
“My uncle had him and told me that there was a sixteenth share available in a horse that’s half-way through his career.
“They wanted $4,000 for the share, so I paid the four grand and then we won five races in town with him, so we had a great time.
Approved By Dean Baring www.harnessbred.com
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