Australia’s first lady of the trots has done it again.
Kerryn Manning today became the first woman driver to win a New Zealand Trotting Cup with an all-the-way victory aboard reigning Hunter Cup champion Arden Rooney.
In winning Manning also became the first trainer to win the race that stops a nation in the land of the long white cloud.
Manning drove the perfect race aboard the Merv Butterworth-owned star at Addington in front of an enormous crowd, the Great Western pacer outgunning the might of Mark Purdon’s stable – who had won nearly everything else on the day – and the best Australasia had to throw at her over the two-mile journey.
Arden Rooney stepped perfectly from behind the tapes to find the lead early and was never troubled in the run, holding off the race favourite Smolda in second and Mossdale Connor in third at the finish.
Manning, last year’s HRV Gordon Rothacker Medal recipient, was the first person ever to win 300 races in a single season in Australia or NZ and the first woman to drive a winner in both the Southern and Northern Hemispheres.
Approved By Dean Baring www.harnessbred.com
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