A pair of Pearls honoured

Two “very good friends” were honoured for the long-term service to the trots with The Angelique Club Pearl Kelly Award.

The award broke from tradition to acknowledge not one but two women who contributed to the trots industry for a prolonged period of time.

Faye McEwan, a noted trainer, and Helen Head, a much lauded breeder, were the first dual winners since 2000, a result Ms McEwan said made the award all the more special.

“We’re very good friends,” she said. “Helen’s put a lot into this sport, it’s good to see her getting some rewards back.”

Ms Head said the award was “an enormous thrill”,  having acknowledged her involvement in the trots since the mid-1960s, when she and husband Graham established their standardbred breeding enterprise Grenada Park Standardbreds in 1977.

In 2006-07 Helen and Graham were awarded the Ian Daff Memorial Award by the Victorian Breeders Association. Helen and Graham have bred numerous black type performers, including several Oaks and Derby champions, and only this year their American imported broodmare Spirited Storm was the dam of star two-year-old The Storm Inside.

Ms McEwan hails from a strong trots family, having obtained her trainer’s licence in the 1960s, initially helping her father, Lew Welsh. Ms McEwan trained her first winner in 1963 and went on to obtain her A grade Licence in the early 1980s.

Since then she has trained more than 500 winners, including top-line horses Posh Jaccka, Meet Me In Paris, Cairn Rock and Jaccka Lon, and has won big races such as the Hamilton Cup, Ouyen Cup, Youthful Stakes and the Tontine Series Final.

“I have been lucky to have some nice horses and beaut animals too," Ms McEwan said. "Posh Jaccka was probably the favourite.” 

Michael Howard (HRV Media/Communications Co-Ordinator)