31 October 2023 | Ashleigh Paikos
Dean Chandler may have waited almost five years for that win on Friday, but harness racing is much more than just a win for the 56-year-old.
Recently relocating his team to Pinjarra, Chandler currently has 12 in work including recent winner, Ally Rocks, who his daughter Ally Chandler named earlier this year before she made her debut in trials in February 2023.
“It was great, it was good because Ally named the horse after herself, so it was good,
“We’ve had a few nightmares with her, so finally we got there with her.”
Confirming that she had come up well in her preparation, the wheels fell off the four-year-old soon after when she started pulling and over racing, and after just six starts in her first campaign, Chandler sent her off for a break, hopeful she would come back more settled.
“When she ran second that day at Pinjarra, she pulled so hard, she pulled the crupper off.”
Getting the mare by luck when he made the big trip down to Albany to pick up Run Stella Run who he had just purchased off Adrian Shanks, he was soon offered the opportunity to take home another horse as a lease prospect, the un-named filly by locally stood stallion Advance Attack NZ, out of Wee Pete Trunkey, who soon became known as ‘Ally Rocks.’
Ally Rocks is likely to head to Collie this Sunday, November 5.
Chandler had a love of racing from a young age, starting at the age of 14 years working for his dad, he soon broadened his horizons, working for larger stables in New Zealand before ultimately making the move to Australia.
“Chris Lang came over for the Inter Dominions with Sundons Gift and Let Me Thru, and he offered me a job to come back and work for him and I thought maybe it’s a good idea, just the change of scenery, and I ended up coming over and working for him,
“Then Mick Lombardo approached me to break in and just basically getting his horses up to the trial stage and then they went to different trainers, more Pre-training on his farm,
“That’s why over the years since I’ve been here, I haven’t really had a lot of horses race for myself because I was doing it more for other people.”
“I don’t really care (about the wins), I just do it because I like the horses,
“I haven’t really had any luck, but I don’t really have good horses,
“I just enjoy taking them to the races.”
A self-proclaimed trotters man, Chandler did confirm he prefers the square gaiters, and with four in his stable currently, this could be where Chandler gets his next success.
“Im Gavoche, he’s been going ok for us, he’s had about three seconds (placings), he’s not much good, but he tries real hard,
“We ended up buying Bee Four Bacardi, but when we bought him we didn’t realise he had some bad health issues, and he didn’t go much food for three starts, but now we know what’s wrong with him, hopefully he will come back and be three-quarters as good as what he was, and if he does, he will win a few races for us.”
Approved By Dean Baring www.harnessbred.com
Driving The Future Of Harness Racing
