2023 Caduceus Club Living Legend: Andy Gath

The pursuit of excellence has long driven Andy Gath and the results have followed across an extraordinary trainer career that has tonight’s seen him inducted as a Caduceus Living Legend.

With a peerless grounding in harness racing, Gath blazed his own past, crafting pacing and trotting champions and forming partnerships with two of the sport’s trailblazing reinswomen.

Ryan Phelan takes a close look at his remarkable career, which was celebrated as part of the Awards Night celebration.

March 2023, The Miracle Mile and trainer Andy Gath has achieved what history would say is near impossible: Taking an unconventional path with the brilliant yet enigmatic four-year-old Catch A Wave (Captaintreacherous) to win harness racing’s premier sprint.

Another chapter in a prodigious 34-year career, which begins with a storied surname – Gath.

It’s a name etched in the annals of harness racing history. Grandfather George, a Hall of Fame Legend, and Father Neville, a 2010 inductee, both blazed paths in the sport few could emulate.

Names alone don’t make champions; it’s determination, hard work and desire that separates the best from the rest – Andy Gath embodies these qualities.

As well as studying his father, Gath would work closely with the late Vin Knight during the peak of his powers, winning Group 1s through the ’80s before embarking on his own training career by decade’s end.

The influence Knight had on Gath’s training is as profound now as it was in those early days. The approach to a training regimen and feeding saw early success with tried horses, particularly those in the claiming ranks. These qualities developed further when teaming up with Kerryn Manning in the ’90s and the move to Great Western proved to be a fruitful one.

In 2001, Gath would welcome into the stable what would become his very first champion – La Coocaracha. The trotting mare known as ‘Cookie’ arrived as a four-year-old with seven wins to her name and would go on to win five Group 1s and nearly half-a-million dollars in prizemoney, highlighted by the 2002 Rowe Cup in Auckland and 2001 Australasian Trotting Championship – a win that many believe was one of the greatest seen at Moonee Valley.

The 2002/03 season partnership between Gath and Manning would yield their most dominant season. Hearts Legend, who gave Gath his first Miracle Mile runner when fifth in 2002, was one of 240 winners from just 791 starters for the stable that season at a strike rate above 30 per cent for the year. Another stable star True Cam, who, after suffering injury following successful 2yo and 3yo seasons, came back from a near 16-month layoff to return as a season standout.

Gath’s ability to promote longevity of success throughout a horse’s career was franked by Blatant Lie during this period, winning Group 1s at two, three and four years of age and going on to be a force in the open class ranks. Emma’s Only was another to dominate the Australian two and three-year-old ranks for the short time in Gath’s care.

For all this success, Gath was yet to reach the summit. In 2006, he would form one of the most successful combinations harness racing has seen with now wife Kate, the pair to date amassing an incredible $16 million in prizemoney.

Kate, a fearless and talented reinswoman is the yin to the yang of Gath’s training sensibilities. Their first season in partnership netting what Gath would describe as “the win that came at a really good time in my career” – the 2006 AG Hunter Cup with About To Rock.

If About To Rock was the entrée, it was million-dollar earner Caribbean Blaster who really cemented the force that was Andy and Kate Gath. He won 24 races and finished second in a Hunter Cup. His biggest wins came in the 2012 Chariots of Fire and that epic Victoria Cup win of the same year.

To watch the duo apply their craft at their Long Farm property is a thing of beauty. The seamless synergy of preparation never strays from a horseman first attitude. As their stars thunder through the shaded tree-lined tracks testing stopwatches – there’s also a different sense of timing – one of patience.

Many say the most challenging breed for a trainer is the trotter. And over the past decade, Andy Gath has fortified himself as the undisputed “Trotting King” of Australia.

In 2016, Andy said “La Coocaracha was a champion… in fact she remains the only champion I’ve ever trained in my mind”. Those words tested the universe as it was around this time when Gath took over the training of kiwi trotter Tornado Valley.

The master horseman was quick to nurture the immense potential the son of Skyvalley possessed, and at just his second start for the stable, finished second at Group 1 level in the Knight Pistol. Just one week later, raised the bar again with victory in the 2018 Group One Trotters Grand Prix.

Tornado Valley would go on to become one of the greatest trotters of all-time. Of his 112 starts, 103 were at Group level, finishing his career in ninth spot on the all-time prizemoney list for Australasian-bred trotters with $1,033,977 highlighted by the 2018 Inter Dominion Trotting Championship Grand Final and Great Southern Star Finals of 2020 and 2021.

Tornado Valley leads the list of an esteemed honour roll of square-gaiters for Gath, including Glenferrie Typhoon, McLovin, Elegant Image and most recently Majestuoso.

He’s also had decades of success with juveniles – always underpinned by patience. Renaissance Man was one of Gath’s most talented two and three-year-olds, who if not for illness may have conquered the open class similar to what we are seeing right now with Catch A Wave.

Gath’s prowess and homework in placing his horses is a thing of genius. He boasts a career winning strike rate of almost 25 per cent with a staggering 40 per cent finishing in the top two. His growing tally just shy of 2800 winners holds him in rare and esteemed company. Fifty-six Group 1s and more than $25 million dollars in prizemoney makes him one of the most successful trainers in the history of harness racing – not bad for a guy just 54 years young.

His meticulous attention to detail and sense of race history informs of the deftest decision making to which wife Kate says, “has helped her become the driver and horsewoman she is today”.

Kate and those closest to him will tell you, it’s the things we don’t see on honour rolls and racetracks that sets Andy Gath apart. It’s the quiet moments before sunrise with a fledgling talent, the unorthodox course-charting of races in the afternoons, the attention to detail in the evenings ensuring the utmost care of his horses, and the sleepless nights of how he’s going to do it all better tomorrow.

It’s these things that make him a legend. And the 2023 Harness Racing Victoria Living Legend Inductee.

From Harness Racing Victoria