Jamie urges everyone to join the dream ride

You would be hard-pressed to find anyone disappointed with Saturday night’s $2.1m TAB Eureka harness racing result.

The winner, exciting mare Encipher (Captaintreacherous), was driven by a champion reinsman from NSW, Luke McCarthy, trained by Victoria’s leading trainer Emma Stewart and bred and largely owned by South Australians, the Linke family.

Yet no-one was more upbeat about the result than Jamie Durnberger-Smith, the syndicate head of slotholders Summit Bloodstock.

“It’s been a hell of a wild ride. We finished up at about 5am,” said Durnberger-Smith.

“Boy oh boy, what has just happened?”

Summit Bloodstock has been going for about three and half years and as Durnberger-Smith pointed out, it now involved about 2200 owners of which between 1800 and 1900 had never been involved in horse ownership before.

“It was an incredible thrill with that capacity crowd on Saturday night,” he said.

“And there’s no reason harness racing cannot be like that now.

“We want to change the game and take it to the next level.

“And we want people with any type of budget to get involved with us.

“The plan is, via Aaron Bain Racing, to contact us and get as many bums on seats as we can at the races.

“We’re off to the US in two weeks and then to Sweden in a month’s time and to get as many horses as we can to try to make harness racing the sport of the future.”

One of the last horses into the field, Encipher was the only mare in the race and Durnberger-Smith explained that trainer Emma Stewart was convinced her ace mare could win the inaugural running of our richest-ever harness race.

“We listened to her and went into negotiations – for us and our slot, which involved about 100 people in with us.

“A lot of them had an amazing ride and the fact none of us probably expected to win only made the race even more special for us.

“It still feels like a dream and we can’t believe it.

“Encipher has already proven a magnificent horse and there are plenty of options for her as she’s one of the best mares we’ve ever seen.

“We won’t lock into a horse for next year this far out, but we’ll keep an eye on things.

“We want to keep this slot for as long as we’re alive.

“Only this sport can give you this feeling of complete euphoria and it doesn’t cost that much to get involved.”

by Michael Court, for HRNSW