By Michael Guerin
Team Blanchard achieved a special family milestone at Cambridge on Thursday and the head of the clan says there is an unheralded member of their success story.
Father and son partnership Peter and Vaughan Blanchard trained their 100th winner together when Always B Stunning made a winning debut in race 2 and win No.101 was only an hour away when trotter Majestic Ruby confirmed her promise with a huge win in the night’s main trot.
Peter Blanchard has of course trained 100s of winners but says for Vaughan to get to 100th while still in the infancy of his career is a wonderful effort.
“I am thrilled for him and to do it together is a great family thing,” says Blanchard.
“But it isn’t just Vaughan. Our other son Kyle helps us out too and while his name isn’t in the partnership he is part of it as well. So Karen and I am really proud of both of them.”
Always B Stunning is a daughter of Always B Miki and the former handy mare Simply Stunning who won six races herself and is turning into quite the producer leaving recent Perth group 2 winner Simply Shaz and the under-rated Simply Sam.
“This filly has the breeding to be a good one and we think she might be.”
There is no doubt their other winner from Thursday, Majestic Ruby has the makings of a good trotter as she scored her third win in just six starts, a rarity for a four-year-old trotter to start their career.
This one was the most impressive as she was disconnected from the back of the pack at the 1600m and while Brent Mangos did his part with a brilliant pegs-hugging drive she still looked no chance at the 400m and did a huge job to catch leader Ahwel, who looked home.
“Mango said she had no right to win,” explains Blanchard.
“She has real speed and I think that will get her most of the way to open class.
“But she is getting up in the ratings really quickly now because of that so we have to be careful with her.”
Majestic Ruby is out of five-race winner Ruby’s Jewel and is part-owned by well-known harness racing journalists Garrick Knight, Jonny Turner and Matt Smith, the latter now head of communications for the TAB.
The Blanchards weren’t the only father and son team to reach a training milestone on the night as Brian and Gareth Hughes registered their 50th training win together when they also trained a double.
The first leg came when Whispering Artist came from last to win over 2700m, rating a very quick 2:0.1 for the staying trip but just as impressive was debut trotting winner Kiss My Pixel, who never looked like winning until she balanced up and sprinted like a good filly in the last race.
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