A tower of strength behind the scenes

While Rockbank harness racing father-and-son team Ted and Blake Caruana are enjoying a nice run of success, they are quick to heap the praise elsewhere.

“I love the horses, but I’m really busy running our family construction business. It’s mainly housing, although we’re venturing into the commercial side,” Blake said.

“Dad is at the stables nearly all the time. He handles the feed duties and stuff like that. But the key is my fiancée Celeste (Towers) who is really the heart and soul behind the operation,” he said.

“I try and be there on hopple-up days and otherwise it all rests with Celeste. She’s the backbone. I first noticed her leading a horse at a meeting for her then boss Andy Gath and that was my lucky day.

“We got to know each other, and Celeste has now been over here at Rockbank for more than 12 months. We’re engaged and looking forward to setting up a new training complex on 100 acres at Myrniong.

“There’s no rush because I’m flat out with the business, so we are just doing it on the back burner.”

The stable took two horses to Yarra Valley (Aug 18) and returned home with the perfect result of two victories—giving Celeste her first-ever driving double.

Former Kiwi pacer Satchmo Strikes (Sweet Lou) produced a last-to-first effort to narrowly take out the United Petroleum Pace, while James In Charge (He’s Watching) was responsible for a tough death-seat performance, clearing out to easily win the Yarra Glen IGA Maiden Pace.

“I could have perhaps driven Satchmo Strikes a bit better, but at least we won,” Celeste said.

However, Blake disagreed, saying that the plan was to not get in an early war as the horse has a “mean sprint”.

“He was a big handful when we first of all got him. He was actually a really difficult horse. So, we took a lot of gear off, including his head check and now he’s calm and relaxed,” Blake said.

But both Celeste and Blake did agree that while the horse was “green as grass and still had a lot to learn”, he was only going to get better.

Celeste has a strong harness racing background with both her parents Jefferey and Angela, of Bungaree, Ballarat involved over many years.

“Mum used to drive and her dad (the late Arthur Stan Anyon, of Stawell) was a well-known and respected horseman,” she said.

“I started off working horses with dad. I was doing spuds and dairy farming work and then I’d be off with the horses during my lunch break. Later on, I spent two months with Emma Stewart and then nine months with Andy Gath.

“It’s great doing the horses for Ted and Blake. There’s five in work which Blake says is a comfortable number for me to handle.”

Ted had a handful of drives over 25 years ago before taking a break. He again become interested in the sport about six years ago.

“I think dad noticed that I was hanging around with Uncle Ian and keen on the horses. So, we’ve since had a lot of fun with about 50 winners. We haven’t had any champions, although we did win the Adelaide Derby one year,” Blake said.

“We tend to just have about half a dozen, but we’re really strong on trying to be consistent. I had some trial drives and I tease Celeste that I might get my driver’s license — but honestly, I didn’t have much ability!”

by Terry Gange, for Harnesslink