Promising pacer hunts down another win

One of country Victorian harness racing’s most improved pacers, Double The Hunter (Camlach) continued on his winning way yesterday (Mar 26), taking out the Ouyen Pacing Cup in the Mallee.

A winner of two races in his two-year-old season, and two last year as a three-year-old, Double The Hunter is now three from five this season, and stepping up to the potential Maryborough hobby trainer Tim Mortlock saw in him.

Double The Hunter gave him one of his biggest thrills in the sport, taking out a heat and final of the Central Victorian Pacing Championship in January, before the Ouyen Pacing Cup victory.

“I always thought he would be better as he got older, and I think we should be able to win a few more with him yet,” Mortlock said.

“We just take things one day at a time, and I haven’t really got a program mapped out for him.  But we might have a look at a run at Melton now, then possibly have a go at the Mildura Cup in April,” he said.

Although he has been a regular visitor to northwest Victoria, Mortlock said Double The Hunter was only the second horse he had raced at Ouyen.

“Dad (the late Rob) won a couple of races at Ouyen, but I’ve only raced here once before, and I’ve never won here.  I thought it suited the horse, though.  He gets around the small tracks and he just seems to be getting better with age,” Mortlock said.

“He won a couple when he was two and three, but over raced a bit.  We were snagging him off the gate, and he just got to pulling in his races,” he said.

“Then I put Michelle Phillips on him one night at Swan Hill, and he just seemed to settle, and he’s really gone on from there.”

Mortlock races the horse in partnership with his mum Helen, who credits her son’s dedication to the sport.

“He is a full-time butcher, part time track curator and mobile driver at Maryborough and trains three or four horses in his spare time,” she said after the race.

“He works hard and it’s lovely to see him getting some good luck as well for all his hard work.”

They’re both counting their good fortune to be enjoying the ride with Double The Hunter.

“(Mildura trainer) Geoff Lucas gave me his mum Double Header after she had 18 months in the paddock with a bowed tendon.  She had some ability, and I had almost got her ready to race when she broke down again,” Mortlock said.

“Geoff didn’t want her back, so I did a deal with (Wedderburn vet and studmaster) Greg Hargreaves when he started his breeding program.  He took the mare and had the first foal from her, then sent her back to me in foal to Camlach – that was Double The Hunter.

“I always say you’re better to be lucky than good looking – and I think we got lucky with this fellow!”

Accomplished reinswoman Jackie Barker was having her first drive for the Mortlock stable, and only picked up the opportunity after Jack Laugher became unavailable due to suspension.

It was the first leg of a driving double for Barker, who was also successful in the final event at Ouyen on Soar (Fly Like An Eagle) for former local Trevor Patching, whose father and uncle were instrumental in establishing the Ouyen Harness Racing Club in 1956.

Not so fortunate were drivers Michelle Phillips and Mark Riseley, who were both taken to Mildura Base Hospital with injuries sustained in a fall in race two, Phillips with suspected concussion and an arm injury and Riseley with suspected wrist and hand injuries. Neither horse involved suffered significant injuries.

by Terry Gange, for Harnesslink