Plenty to celebrate for dual code Matt Scott

Training a winner is something, but training a winner in two different codes on the same day is something else, and for Matt Scott he accomplished that on Saturday for the fourth time in his career.

With Tiny’N’Tuff getting the cash at Collie in the second on the card on their Cup Day, becoming a thoroughbred trainer wasn’t something Scott had thought long and hard about, but a tipsy day at the races gave him the courage to take the leap.

“I’ve only trained 16 galloper winners, but I seemed to have now done it four times,

“It was on a father’s day about seven years ago, my uncle had a share in a horse with Justin Warwick and he wanted to sack it and I had quite a few Hahn 3.5 and I said ‘I’ll get a licence and I’ll train it, and I did,

“A horse called Heeza Torio and we won a race with it, and he was only a limited type of horse, and that’s how I really got into it,

“Probably didn’t have an inkling about getting into it earlier, but I treat it more of a hobby than the harness, I’m only working a couple.”

Scott owns half of Tiny’N’Tuff and the ownership with these horses started in the harness racing industry, with a long-standing partnership with Tony Maguire who owns pacers Gee Smith, Rock Me Over, Tritty Bang Bang and Sister Act as well.

Admitting that the gallopers are a lot easier in terms of work,

“They only work 10 minutes a day, you hardly have to work them and there is no gear, so I’m not buying hopples all the time and having to gear up,

“I can’t ride so I’m relying a lot on other people, I do lead them off the pacers,

“I pay Sasha Starley, who is a jockey, she rides them in track work, but without Sasha, I couldn’t do it, she does them at 5 o’clock in the morning,

“That’s the big thing, I’ve got good help at Lark Hill.”

Heeza Torio made his debut for Scott in February 2015, delivering the Serpentine based trainer his first winner just two months later in April down in Albany.

Scott currently has Aizya in work as well, who ran third in a listed race at Ascot back in late November 2022, he hopes to have her racing on Melbournce Cup Day at Ascot next week.

Admitting that the gallopers are easier in the terms of work, Scott did mention that the standardbreds have a toughness to race which cannot be matched and it’s clear that harness racing is a passion for Scott and one that he won’t be moving on from anytime soon, with new acquisition for the stable, Wheresthetowrope (Follow The Stars) taking out race six on Saturday at Narrogin.

WHERESTHETOWROPE REPLAY

“Being trained in Byford, I thought he might like the rural place in serpentine, it’s only a battler, but he got a good drive and the favourite galloped, and he got a bit of luck,

“He’s only limited but he could be a Busselton Cup type of horse, because he had his first stand the other day and he gets away really well,

“We will just poke around the bush and try to get down to Busselton and try to win the cup again.”

Wheresthetowrope has had just the three starts for Scott, with a first up runner up effort at Collie, followed by a fifth in the John Martin Memorial last weekend.

“I didn’t expect to get a winner at Narrogin, it was a surprise, I knew the one at Collie would go good,

“But gearing up three harness horse compared to putting a bridle and a saddle on a galloper, it would have been a lot easier to go to Collie, but I had to go to Narrogin,

“I probably woke up a lot better in the head today than I would have if I had gone to Collie, that’s true.” Scott joked.

“They only have one meeting a year and they do it really well, like the Collie Trots, I just hope they keep these country events going because they mean a lot to the town,

“it means a lot to the people of Collie, and you can see by the crowds at both venues that these are very important social events, it would be a shame to lose them.”

Collie Turf Club have just the one meeting each year, their big one, the Cup, and the Collie Harness Racing Club have four meetings a year, with their third instalment of their season this Sunday, November 5.

For complete race results, click here.

by Ashleigh Paikos, for RWWA