And it’s farewell in the most fitting way!

Young harness racing trainer Nathan Rothwell and his family farewelled their adopted State of Victoria in the best possible way with a winner at Sunday night’s (Nov 13) Cranbourne meeting before packing up to head home to Queensland.

Rothwell trained and drove $61 shot A Perfect Dance (A Rocknroll Dance) to an all-the-way win in the Hygain Pace, and the stable’s other two horses Playa Blanca and Tommy Bligh finished runners up on the same program.

“It was definitely a good way to finish off our time in Victoria – it was a pretty good night because we weren’t really expecting those results.  There was a pretty close protest too in Tommy Bligh’s race, fourth against first, so it could have been even better, but I’m definitely not complaining,” Nathan said.

Nathan and his brother Will co-own all three pacers and the win by A Perfect Dance was Nathan’s eighth as a trainer and sixth as a driver.

The family relocated from Queensland in 2019 to allow the brothers to follow their training and driving dream in harness racing – they planned to stay a year for the boys to complete the (former) harness racing training school course at Warragul, but ended up staying almost three.

“Mum and dad moved down here for us to do this, and I don’t think many parents would do that – we’ve been very lucky. We’ve had an absolutely awesome time in Victoria, but dad still has a plastering business in Queensland and its home for us, so it’s time to head back,” Nathan said.

“We’ve been looking for the past year to find a suitable place to buy, and now we’ve found a great property west of Brisbane at Mount Halen.

“It’s on 40 acres and we need to put in stables and a track, but it’s quite close to Marburg, so we can work the horses there for a while if we need to, and it’s in around a few big trainers so hopefully both of us can find some work with a stable in the area.”

Nathan said the harness racing training program had ticked every box for the brothers.

“It was great for us because we didn’t have much background in the sport.  Dad had a stablehand licence when he was a teenager, and he had us watching the trots from when were about eight. We just loved it from there and didn’t want to do anything else.  The training school gave us a fantastic start,” he said.

“I’m keen to try more of the driving side in future – I love training, but I’d love to see how far I can go with the driving.  And Will is just as keen and works as hard as I do, and he’ll be working on finishing the trial drives he needs to get his licence.

“We learnt a heap – the course set us up, so if we can gain some more experience with some other trainers that would be ideal, because if we’ve learnt one thing, it’s that you never stop learning in this sport!”

But the southern stopover has been a learning experience for more than Nathan and Will. The boys’ dad Mark has also satisfied a lifelong ambition to train – although in a different code.

“We’d actually bought a greyhound pup before we left Queensland and when we came down here, we were looking to get someone to train it,” Nathan said.

“Jenny Lewis from the training school put us onto a trainer called Gerry O’Keeffe, but he was adamant that dad was going to get his training licence himself and train the dog.

“Her name is Long Black Lass, and she wasn’t that well-bred, but she’s gone on and won six races for dad. She’s been going around every Thursday night in the metros – she’s been fantastic.

“And Gerry’s been amazing too – he’s bought the horses we’ve got at the moment for us, and it’s been one of those great experiences meeting him and learning from him as well.”

The Rothwell’s will depart Victoria for Queensland next Saturday.

by Terry Gange, for Harnesslink