Samantha Gangell enjoying that winning feeling

Former Tasmanian harness racing trainer Samantha Gangell has taken a little while to find her feet in harness racing on the mainland – but now she’s turned the corner, with back-to-back wins with handy new acquisition Im Eugene (Artspeak).

Samantha and her partner Zeke Slater moved to Victoria at the end of 2022 for work opportunities and set up their hobby-training base at the Cranbourne training centre, southeast of Melbourne.

“We didn’t have the best of luck initially with the horses – things just didn’t seem to go right for a while, but hopefully we’re on the way now,” Gangell said.

Im Eugene recorded the couple’s first win since their move at their home track on March 21 – then followed up with a second victory a little over a week later, again at Cranbourne (Mar 29).

“He’s been a bit of a surprise. We found him on Trading Ring, and when we first got him we didn’t have too many high expectations or expect him to set the world on fire,” Gangell said.

“But when we started to fastwork him we thought ‘hang on, we might have something here’!” she said.

“He was working super at home so the wins weren’t altogether a surprise, and it’s still a relief to get them!”

The couple made the move when former harness racing trainer Slater was offered a full-time role with a Victorian thoroughbred stable.

Slater recorded four wins as a trainer last season, but for Gangell, who was introduced to harness racing at the age of five by her stepdad Eric Jacobson, Im Eugene’s Cranbourne wins were her first since the move from Tasmania.

“My work (in disability services) is a bit more flexible and I’m able to do a bit more with the horses, so it made sense for us to train under my name, but it’s very much a team effort with Zeke,” she said.

“The Cranbourne training centre is amazing – we are really lucky to have got a stable there.  We’ve been in community training centres before in Tassie, but they don’t even compare to Cranbourne.

“Everyone is great here and after we got the wins, they were all so happy for us and congratulating us – it’s just a really nice place to be.

“We’ll just keep things on a hobby basis, I think.  I did the full-time thing as a driver and working the sport for a few years and I don’t think I would go back to that.  If we can just have a couple of nice horses we can race together, and eventually breed a few more, we’ll be happy.”

The stable has only two horses in work currently, with Dukes Choice another capable prospect.

A winner of five races, Gangell and Slater returned to Tasmania to campaign with him late last year in the Globe Derby Series, where he finished second in the final.

“He was coming to the end of his prep in that final, and he did a great job,” Gangell said.

“He is a very good horse, but he’s had his fair share of problems. Last start (Cranbourne March 8) we thought he would win, but he got sick after that run, so we are back to the start with him again – but when he puts it all together, he will be a nice horse.”

by Terry Gange, for Harnesslink