Family tradition continues at Yarra Valley

A window of opportunity was all Matt Cormick needed to let his battle-hardened pacer surprise punters and please his favourite harness racing trainer, grandpa.

On Monday Mor Laag pinched the lead on the back straight off Fireinthehole when the front runner hung out and then boxed on to win the Bob Dixon Memorial Pace at Yarra Valley racecourse.

The win at $56 may have surprised punters but not trainer-driver Cormick, of Chelsea Heights, who said Mor Laag had been knocking on the door in the eight starts since he took over the training responsibilities from his grandpa Des Kelly.

“It wasn’t a surprise for us to see him go that good. He won first up for me (at Warragul) and all his starts since have been reasonable, bar last week (at Cranbourne) when I gave him an easy week,” Cormick said.

“It was only a matter of a bit of luck and I thought he would be thereabouts. Yesterday he got all the luck in the world, but still needed to be good enough to win.”

RELIVE MOR LAAG'S WIN AT YARRA VALLEY

Mor Laag ran a personal best winning mile of 1:56.2 to register his fourth career win for breeder and owner Daniel Kelly, who is Cormick’s uncle. It is that family tradition that made Monday’s win all the more satisfying.

Des Kelly, who trained at Heatherton and is now at Iona, learned much from his father, also a trainer, while of Des’ 10 children Daniel Kelly and his sister Sue have been notable owners and their brother Michael drove in the industry.

Three generations on Cormick is keeping that tradition going through Mor Laag and stablemate Framed And Hang, who he trains at Ted Demmler’s Carrum Downs stable and spells at his grandpa’s Iona property.

“My grandfather is winding down as he is getting on a little bit. Over a long period of time he put a fair bit of work into (Mor Laag) and had some success,” Cormick said.

“I spent a lot of time with grandpa and to be able to get a horse off your grandfather and for the horse to run his best time and win when Grandpa was there at the track, well he probably was more happy than me that the horse did so well.”

Cormick drove Mor Laag to the box seat from barrier three and sat behind Fireinthehole to the back straight when John Caldow’s front runner started to hang out, enabling Cormick to drive Mor Laag to the front along the pegs.

“He is the sort of horse that you have to wind him up and on the straight alone he will take too long to wind up,” Cormick said. “When the horse in front rolled off I thought this was about as good a scenario as I could have hoped for and had no hesitation taking the lead. I was able to wind him up from far away and he kept rolling along.”

A 1.5m win from Geoff Webster’s Kotare York and Twoforsixty secured the bulk of the $6,325 stakes.

“He had to earn it, although he had all the luck, he still earned the win and ran the time,” Cormick said. “How far he can go I’m not sure, but he is a nice racehorse who drives hard.”

Michael Howard