Mother and two daughters drive winners within 24 hours in rare feat

A rare double at Blenheim on Friday made up part of an almost certainly unique harness racing treble in the space of 24 hours.

When Sheree Tomlinson won the Marlborough Cup Prelude on Misty Blue it was already a big family moment as the pacer is trained by her grandfather Ken Ford and Sheree’s mother Amanda Tomlinson.

Not to forget Sheree’s fiancée Matt Cross who shares in the ownership of Misty Blue, who rocked punters at 30-1, leaving Cross to scamper down from the commentary box for the presentation photo.

If that ain’t enough family success for one day hold on, this gets better.

Earlier in the meeting Misty Blue’s stablemate Hope For Love won the opening pacing race, this time with Amanda driving the pacer herself.

Now there is certain to be have been times in New Zealand harness racing when a mother and daughter both drove winners the same meeting, the most obvious ones being Michelle Wallis and daughter Crystal Hackett.

But it wouldn’t have happened very often and Sheree couldn’t remember a time when she and her mother have driven winners on the same card.

“As you know we usually drive our own horses and Hope For Love is actually our galloping pacemaker at home who sometimes only gets to go the races to fill up the truck,” she laughs.

So while not unique, the mother-daughter driving double is certainly rare.

But wait, there is more.

Less than 24 hours earlier Sheree’s little sister Kerryn Tomlinson recorded her first Group 3 career win when she drove Empire City to win the Pryde’s Easifeed Southern Lights Trot at Ascot Park for trainer Phil Williamson.

Now feel free to spend the next few days pouring through the history books if you have nothing better to do but you are 1000-1 to find another time a mother and two daughters who driven winners within 24 hours of each other in New Zealand.

Or any other country on earth for that matter.

“It is very cool. I thought I had to drive a winner because I was getting left behind,” said a visibly proud Sheree.

Fathers and sons would have done similar things, even fathers and daughters and brothers and sister would have racked up three winners from the same family inside 24 hours or even at the same meeting.

But very, very few female drivers have daughters also driving at the same time so the Tomlinson Girl Power treble may not be repeated for a long time, if ever.

It just goes to show you, even one of the quieter big-race weekends of the harness racing summer, can produce one of its most remarkable stories.

For complete race results, click here

by Michael Guerin, for Harness Racing New Zealand