By Jonny Turner
Passionate harness racing supporter Shaun Fahy was remembered when his pacer Rakamurph powered to an impressive debut victory at Wyndham on Thursday.
The two-year-old was able to take his excellent trial form to race day with a professional front-running display for trainer-driver Nathan Williamson.
Rakamurph is partly raced by the estate of the late Shaun Fahy, who died last month after battling cancer.
Fahy was a keen harness racing follower and a popular figure with many friends throughout the industry.
Rakamurph was bred by Fahy’s father Brendan, who shares in the horse’s ownership with Shaun’s three siblings Nigel, Brett and Rachael Sinclair.
“Shaun was really looking forward to the horse racing, every time I was talking to him we would talk about the horse,” Brendan Fahy said.
“I was telling him that Nathan has said he was coming up well, but he hadn’t asked him to do a lot yet.”
“His partner Ellen is taking over his share which is great.”
Rakamurph also landed Brendan Fahy a birthday present in the appropriately named the Happy Birthday Brendan Fahy/Peter Hunter Stables Mobile Pace.
The newly created $25,000 Diamond Creek Farm Juvenile Stakes at Oamaru at the Hannon Memorial meeting is the next target for Rakamurph.
“Nathan said he didn’t pull the plugs or anything today which was good,” Fahy said.
“He is looking at Oamaru, but we will just take things one step at a time.”
Rakamurph’s dam Rakarazor was no stranger to feature age-group racing, having run third in a Southland Oaks before winning at Group Three level in Australia.
After winning nine of her fifteen starts across the Tasman, Rakarazor was retired before returning to New Zealand after suffering a pedal bone injury.
Rakamurph is likely to be joined on his Oamaru trip by his stablemate Pembrook Playboy.
The open class star made his first public appearance of the spring when trialling at Wyndham last weekend with fellow Hannon hopefuls Macandrew Aviator and Tommy Waterhouse.
Amid wet and wild conditions, Pembrook Playboy went to the line hard held in behind runners without being asked for a serious effort.
Approved By Dean Baring www.harnessbred.com
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