Galloping pacemaker wins at Oamaru

Huckabee, a seven year old gelding by Extreme Three, upset at the Oamaru Harness Racing Club meeting yesterday.

Trained at Timaru by Colin Harrison and part owned by Colin and his son Jason, the gelding was given the perfect trip by driver Sarah O’Reilly and came up the passing lane to win at odds of 29 to 1, winning by half a length.

Huckabee winning his first race driven by Sarah O’Reilly

“He was pretty useless when we broke him in. …. pretty poorly gaited so we just kept him around home and used him as a galloping pacemaker. He did have a bit of luck at Forbury a couple of times. He’s been sacked about six times but we’ve just brought him back to work with the other ones,” said Jason.

“He just got the run to suit today.”

Saluting the judge

In the birdcage with Jason Harrison

Jason bought Huckabee’s dam The Way Forward for $7,000 at the Yearling Sales.

“She’s out of the old Roydon Lodge family. My first purchase and my first winner.”

Huckabee’s third dam is Roydon Dream, the mother of Roydon Scott, which won eighteen races, and Roydon Glen which won the 1985 Hannon Memorial.

Colin Harrison has been a trainer in New Zealand since 1985 and he had his first win at Timaru in February of that year. His father Peter Harrison trained horses and his grandfather TS Harrison owned Loyal Nurse, which won the 1949 New Zealand Cup (trained by Colin Berkett).

Colin rates Hindu Rebel as his best horse. It won four races before heading to America.

He said he began his training career in America as a young man. “I went over with Kevin Holmes in 1977 when he took Testing Times up there. I worked for him for about a year and then went out on my own.”

More recently he’s had success with Tijuana Taxi and Hannity.

View the Oamaru results click here!

by Bruce Stewart