Harness racing a lifelong passion for Paul Mather

Manchester, England – It would most certainly be an understatement that harness racing has been a lifelong passion for over 65 years for one family from Manchester. The Mather family.

Trainer/driver Paul Mather (age 62) and his brothers Peter and George were introduced at a young age to the trotters and pacers by their late father, Frederick Ephraim Mather.

Frederick was a harness racing enthusiast who owned and trained many horses and also brought his sons into the sports. At the age of 16, Paul was racing and training pacers, but there came a turning point for Paul that would see him turn away from pacers to trotters.

A special horse he had named 'Star Trade', was very successful and won many races as a pacer, but Star Trade would often trot when jogging so Paul decided to convert him to a trotter and it turned out very well as he went on to win 13 trot races, including the two classics, the Prakas and the Roosevelt.

Paul has never owned a pacing horse since, although pacers are still in the stable as Paul's brother Peter, continues to train and race them. Paul has imported many trotters from France and Belgium over the years and also owns British bred trotters to specifically compete in the 'Prakas' which is for British bred horses only, and that he won most recently in 2015 with Wildcat Supreme.

Paul is a committee member of the TROTBritain group formed 20 years ago to enable trotting in Britain to begin to grow. TROTBritain is dedicated to the progression of trotting in Great Britain.

Since 2014 and the beginnings of The 'Le Trot' agreement, Paul, his son Paul, Jr. and his brother, Peter, now own and train four French trotting horses, one of which is named Show Business, who was drawn in the 2015 March sale.

Show Business has shown to become above the rest racing 16 times, winning six times with three second place and one third place finish. He was awarded Trotter of the Year in 2015 and Paul won the Driver of the Year honors and was invited to Vincennes, France to receive his award and take part in the 'Prix de Internationals' race which saw drivers from 18 European countries take part.

Paul lived his dream that day of driving at Vincennes. He may have finished 8th out of the 18 drivers in the field, but just being in the race was an honor to him.

"I would have given good money for a drive on that track," Mather's said of Vincennes," and I was lucky enough to do it for free, a lifelong dream come true!"

Show Business is 10 years old and is sired by Game Jet from the mare Ketty D'Epinay, who had a race record 1:14 over 2400m At Beaumont De Lomangne France. His first start in 2016 will be in May at Tir Prince. He races in the Gold Division, which is the same as an Invitational or Open Class in North America.

"Show Business has been a real easy horse to work with," Mather explained. "He does exactly what is asked of him and puts in 110% from behind the gate. It is a pleasure to drive. I've thoroughly enjoyed the 2015 season with him and am counting the days for the 2016 season to begin. The horse makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and that's a result because I'm bald!"

Currently the Mather Stable has seven horses in training. Other stars include Staz Hazelhaar, who broke the English record over one mile in 2:00, erasing a ten-year-old record. Wildcat Supreme currently holds the mile and one quarter 3yr old record for an English bred trotter while Sheila B'Devotion and Piece of Sleipner are both top performers.

The future is looking very prosperous with the Le Trot deal as this is the third year of the special program. More than 15 horses are being selected from various parts of France commencing Monday 14th March and arriving in the UK hopefully the following week.

All together in the first two years, 45+ horses/mares have been brought over from France with another 15 coming over soon.

And for those looking to reap some of the purse money from the special LeTrot Series events, just remember, Show Business is once again eligible to the series and Paul Mather is ready to guide him to another Trotter of the Year season.

By Steve Wolf, for Harnesslink