500 wins is just reward for many long road trips

South Australian-based harness racing driver Jayson Finnis doesn’t like to think about how many kilometres he’s clocked up in reaching a milestone 500 career wins.

But he doesn’t get too flustered about the long road trips to meetings that are a fact of life from Mount Gambier, halfway between Adelaide and Melbourne, preferring to focus on enjoying his successes.

“We are a fair way from the action. I do feel sorry for our horses. They spend a lot of time in the float and they’d have every reason to feel a bit unlucky that they’ve lobbed out here with us!” Finnis said.

“I couldn’t even guess how many kilometres we’ve done. But I was born and bred in Mt Gambier so travelling is just a part of it. Our closest track would be Hamilton, an hour and 40 minutes away. Then there’s Horsham which is two and a quarter hours; Ararat and Stawell are three hours, and Charlton the other day took me three hours and 45 minutes.”

Finnis claimed his 500^th career win at Charlton last Thursday (July 20) in an all-the-way victory with Lunar Girl (Union Guy), trained by his wife Alyce, in the Wimmera Mallee Tourism Maiden Pace.

“Our kids named the horse after their favorite cartoon character—they’d watch cartoons on television before going off to kinder,” Finnis said.

“We had a smart one in Juddy Douglas who got sold to the US and has won over $150,000. It was named after our son Judd and then there was Sadie Jayne, who won six races, and was named after our daughter. We’ve got a five-month-old baby, Tilly, and we’ve picked out a nice 2yo to be named after her.”

Finnis said a career in harness racing was always on the cards with his father Barry and grandfather Peter Medhurst, both heavily involved.

“As soon as I left school, I was out working full-time for Pops at his place out at Glencoe, which is about 20minutes from Mt Gambier. He was big in breeding and had some handy broodmares. He would breed around a dozen every year, but he’s now cut back to about half that many,” Finnis said.

“We’re still doing some for Pops, and dad still trains four or five at a time.  He’s taught me so much.  Kevin Brough and David Drury have also been great giving me a lot of horses to drive over the years.

“We bought our own place about seven years ago and have an 800-metre sand track but we float them into the Mt Gambier track for fastwork. We’re doing eight and probably half of them are being aimed at the Sires Stakes races in Adelaide in the first week of December.”

Finnis said the couple enjoyed attending the annual yearling sales.

“We’ve been quite lucky in that everything we’ve purchased has gone on and won races. I give my Pops a lot of the credit because when I was younger, he took me around to the sales, including over in New Zealand. His knowledge put me in good stead. We study the breeding and also go on looks a bit.

“Wolf Of West Bay (Art Major) was a great horse and won about $80K, while Eye See Double (American Ideal) is still winning in Tassie. Art Jester (Art Major) is another one that’s done a good job for us – he’s won 11 so far, including a metro at Melton back in May.

“We’ve been lucky to win a couple at Melton and hopefully we keep getting horses that are capable of racing at metro level.”

The Finnis family have enjoyed huge success over the years in Victoria and South Australia, and Jayson showed fine touch from an early age, representing South Australia in driver series on two occasions—at Sydney’s Menangle Park and Gloucester Park in Perth.

But it’s fair to say that he will always have a special place in his heart for Gawler, a town on the northern edge of Adelaide.

“I got my first winner on the old Gawler track on March 28 in 2008. I was 16 and got home with Jewel Of Destiny, a Live Or Die 2yo bred and owned by Pops who was having her first start,” he said.

While Finnis has a number of highlights to his years of involvement, driving five winners on two separate occasions at his home track is perhaps up the top.

“On one of those nights, it was pretty special because we trained each one of the winners and Pops bred them all. Another big thrill was winning our hometown cup two years ago with Royal Speech,” he said.

by Terry Gange, for Harnesslink