Border hopping rewards couple with first Victorian double

Ultra consistent New South Wales couple Brooke McPherson and Thomas Gilligan are putting in the miles, but border hopping is proving a winning harness racing strategy.

Based at Henty, north of Albury, Gilligan made the four-hour trek worth it with an impressive winning double at Bendigo on Wednesday night (July 7), with promising three-year-olds Shades Of Miki (Always B Miki) and Major Hayley (Art Major).

It was the couple’s first Victorian double and follows a winning road-trip to the ACT with Justcallmerex (Tintin In America) earlier this month, and another Victorian run to Kilmore with Shades of Miki earlier in the year.

“We’ve had a bit of a rethink and cut back our numbers to focus more on finding quality horses that can be competitive at our Wagga meetings on Friday,” Gilligan said.

“The racing is just getting better and faster at Wagga all the time now and you’ve got to have such high-quality horses. I enjoy it because you have to keep stepping up, but we had to make some hard decisions.”

While the couple have previously enjoyed success with Rusty Crackers (19 wins) and Ultimate Hughie (nine wins), Gilligan said they’d made a conscious shift to reduce the pressure and scale back operations.

“We’ve trained teams of up to 17 or 18 in the past, but now we’ve cut back to working around four racehorses, as well as about five young ones,” he said.

“We’re ticking through a few we have bred to see what we’ve got, but we’re really focused on quality rather than quantity. We’re expecting our second baby in November, our daughter Matilda is four now, I’m working full time with my shoeing and Brooke is full time at Hertz, so we’re just finding a better balance and we’re really enjoying it.

“The horses come second at this stage of our life, and at times some of our horses live a very leisurely life!”

The Bendigo winners were for first-time owner Rhys Butler, who has recently joined the sport through his friendship with Gilligan.

“Rhys is a mate of mine and he hasn’t been involved in harness racing before. But he just came to me one day and said he wanted to race some horses,” Gilligan said.

“I told him he was mad! But he’s bought a few and he’s in with us in a couple of the ones we’ve bred. He’s just loving it and we’re having great fun.

“Brooke sometimes thinks I’m a bit laid back with the horses, but she’s over the moon with this, so the horses and I might be able to give ourselves a couple of days off!”

Both Shades of Miki and Major Hayley were expertly driven by capable Murchison reinsman Ryan Sanderson.

“We started taking a few horses down to the Sandersons’ water walker at Willowood Farms and got to know them through that – they’re a beautiful family and Ryan’s a terrific young driver,” Gilligan said.

“He did a great job – we’ve had doubles before at Leeton and Wagga, but it’s our first in Victoria.”

Gilligan is a third-generation horseman, continuing the legacy of his father Shane and late grandfather Ron. Together, he and Brooke are continuing to invest in their 60-acre property.

“We’ve decided just to work hard and put as much into the property as we can so that in the future if we want to have a go at training full time, we’ve got the right place to do that.”

From Terry Gange or Harnesslink