First double a lifetime highlight

By his own admission, Victorian harness racing trainer-driver Fred Posgate has had an interesting life – but he counts his first winning double recently as one of the pure highlights.

Mildura-based Posgate prepares a five-horse team with his wife Angela and the couple recorded the career milestone with pacers Woody Nightshade (Sportswriter) and Puopolo (Santanna Blue Chip) at their home track last week (Nov 28).

“We were absolutely thrilled – we don’t win out of turn but to win with both of them on the same night was an absolute treat.  One of the most exciting moments of our lives, it was excellent,” Posgate said.

“It was immensely exciting night for us, and I have to say, we stayed up till three watching replays!”

The 74-year-old said his love of the sport began as a child when he would go with his parents to the trots at Wayville in Adelaide.

“You could hear the reverberation in the grandstand of the pounding hooves – and that sound and that sense of excitement about the trots never really left me,” he said.

But life isn’t a linear journey, and for Posgate, there was a diverse career to be attended to before he could actually try his hand at harness racing.

“When I left school, I went opal mining.  I was only 18 and after that, I went into the Police Force in South Australia for 13 years,” he said.

“I was lucky to get selected to go to England and learn about police dogs and was part of the team that brought six police dogs back to Adelaide and started the dog squad in SA Police.

“Once I got fed up with the police work, I left and bought a 60-foot barramundi boat and went commercial barramundi fishing on Thursday Island (in the Torres Strait) for quite a few years.”

Next stop for Posgate was Karumba, a fishing destination and industrial port on the Gulf of Carpentaria.

“Now that was a real eye-opener,” he laughed.  “It seemed that everyone there was either running from police or running from their wives!  But it was an interesting experience, and from there I went to managing another hotel in Penrith.

“After that contract finished up, I opened a fish and chip shop in Cairns, because I do like fish and chips!  And after selling that, I returned to what I knew best, private investigation work.  It was mainly looking for lost and runaway children and I had some pretty harrowing and powerful experiences during that time – it wasn’t something I could keep doing.”

Posgate returned to Adelaide in the mid-1980s, and took up the antiques business combined with, at last, indulging his ambition to try harness racing.

“I met Angela in Adelaide in 1993 and we’ve been together ever since! She hadn’t been involved in harness racing before either, but she loves them like mad, like me.”

Posgate said the couple’s most satisfying, and possibly most successful horse, was one they bought from a ‘dogger truck’ in 2003.

“He was Sir Storm (Vestalba Rainbow).  He hadn’t won a race when we bought him, but he went on to have around 100 starts for us and won 12, with 32 seconds and 21 thirds for his career.  He was one we raced with some friends, and we had terrific fun times over those years.

“We actually had a two state double in 2010 when we won in Mildura with Neanderthal Man (Safely Kept) one night, then went home to Adelaide and won the next night with Sir Storm – but before this, that was as close as we’ve come to a double.”

Both horses were driven by promising young reinsman Jordan Leedham, who finished his Mildura engagements with four winners for the night.

“Jordie has been terrific.  He has got a good head on his shoulders, and he has a good connection with the horses.  But I have to admit, standing in the grandstand I get more nervous than when I am out driving on the track!” Posgate said.

“Angela and I have been concentrating on taking a little bit of weight off the horses, and we’ve noticed the change even in their work at home.  Angela does the feeds, and they tend to get five feeds a day, and I do the trackwork. But we took the advice on board that they were perhaps a bit fat, and we really have to restrain ourselves – we’re being careful we’re not loving them too much!”

by Terry Gange, for Harnesslink