A wing on every hoof at Warragul

Warragul harness racing track in Victoria’s Gippsland region might be one of the oldest in the State – but it’s still breaking new ground in the record books.

The club offered a $1000 bonus for every horse who could break a track record at their meeting on Monday, and some of the State’s prominent stables heeded the call.

“They went pretty slick time in the first race of the day, and we thought hang on, this might turn into an expensive episode!” joked Warragul secretary Des Hughes.

“Then in race four Kate and Andy Gath broke the track record for the 2210 metre distance by two tenths of a second with Yambukian, who’s shaping up into a pretty handy horse,” he said.

Yambukian (Bettors Delight – Coppagoodone (Christian Cullen) clocked 1:56.2 around the half-mile Warragul Pacing Bowl (837 metres), careering away to score a 22-metre victory in the Downtowner Pace.

The run shaved point two of a second off the previous record set in 2017 by Coldplay Road.

It was Yambukian’s fifth win in only eight attempts, and Kate Gath said she wasn’t entirely surprised at the three year old’s track record time.

“We don’t get to Warragul often, but there were suitable races there for a number of our horses, and it’s a really good half-mile track,” Gath said.

“He’s a pretty serious horse who I think will get better in time. He’s a big, tall fellow who hasn’t matured, so I think we will see improvement in him yet,” she said.

Not surprisingly, Yambukian is now being headed towards the VicBred features later in the year.

“He’s owned by Richard and Pauline Matthews, along with a good mate of Richard’s in Robert Sinnott,” Gath said.

“We’ve trained horses for Richard for a number of years now and had quite a bit of success. It’s certainly a friendship as much as a business relationship. They’re just really nice people who invest a lot of money into the sport both by breeding their own and buying yearlings.

“We’re thrilled they’ve found a couple of really nice horses in Yambukian and his half-brother Catch A Wave.”

(Two-year-old Catch A Wave is by Captaintreacherous, and a winner of three from three, including the APG Gold Sovereign Final last month).

The energetic Warragul Harness Racing Club, 100 kilometres southeast of Melbourne, was established in 1939, and now hosts around eight meetings a year.

Hughes said the club was continuing to trial initiatives to attract new trainers from a broader area to the meetings.

“We’ve got a new track manager and we’ve been putting a little bit of effort into the surface, so putting $1000 on offer for a track record seemed like a good way to appeal to trainers to bring some fast horses,” he said.

The Gaths, the Jodi Quinlan team, Jess Tubbs stable, Jayne Davies and Russell Jack all heeded the call, and with the exception of the trot, every race broke two minutes for the day, with both of the Gath winners stopping the clock at around the 1:56 mark.

“We’ll try to do something at every meeting to incentivise trainers to come out this way – it’s a great little track when it’s on fire, and it is that at the minute,” Hughes said.

By Terry Gange for Harnesslink