Sunny’s “day in the sun” at Charlton

After 21 unplaced starts, flashy chestnut trotting mare Salute To Sunny (Framework) may have been down to her last chance – but she turned it all around with a determined and long-awaited win at Charlton’s harness racing meeting last Monday (August 11).

Horsham trainer Janet Exell admitted she had told driver Kerryn Manning before the race that it could be the mare’s racing swansong.

“I’d decided that after so many unplaced race starts, perhaps the ‘beautiful redhead’ would be better suited to becoming a show horse only,” Exell said.

“I told Kez that if they didn’t end up in the first few, the horse was being sacked because I’d run out of patience!”

But Salute To Sunny and Manning clearly had other ideas, zipping up the sprint lane to land the breakthrough victory in fine style.

“I thought I’d die of old age before the horse ever won a race,” Exell said.

“But we’ll press on now – she really did it well. It was a great drive by Kez and it absolutely made my day.”

Exell, who usually watches the races at Charlton near the finish line, admitted her excitement was hard to miss.

“I was screaming so much I nearly lost my voice – friends told me they could see me cheering and jumping up and down on the race video,” she said.

The win capped a long journey of patient problem-solving, from fine-tuning shoeing with aluminium fast-breaks to address the mare’s gait, to veterinary treatment for stifle and hock issues with Annemarie Kemmink at Miners Rest.

While Salute To Sunny has already proven a star in the show ring – with successes at Geelong and beyond – her show career is now on hold.

“She’ll make a great full-time show horse, but that’s on the back burner for now.

“Kez even told me she didn’t run about as much this time – they only knocked down two or three marker pegs instead of the usual seven or eight!” Exell said.

The mare’s name is a tribute to another chestnut trotter Exell once owned, Keepthedream, known around the stables as “Sunny”.

“We ended up losing her to pneumonia. She fought for three and a half months, but the vets couldn’t save her,” Exell said.

“It left me feeling pretty broken and miserable and one day I googled ‘chestnut trotter’ – up came this unraced horse in Adelaide, bred by some people I knew from the show circuit, and she looked so much like Sunny, I had to have her,” she said.

Exell credits the win to a true team effort, thanking family friend Liz Barnes and niece Laura Exell for their help with both the racehorses and show horses.

She currently has six racehorses in work – along with four show horses which are headed to Adelaide later this month.

“Sunny is just a lovely horse, with a beautiful temperament. She is a real smooch and that win meant the world to me,” Exell said.

From Terry Gange for Harnesslink