Border hop cracks the code for Aaron

It’s been a long road to get his harness racing driver’s licence, but Mildura horseman Aaron Coad hasn’t wasted any time posting his first winner.

Coad, who relocated from Broken Hill to Mildura about eight months ago, scored his breakthrough win at just his sixth race drive – three years after he first started working towards his reinsman’s ticket.

“When I began training in Broken Hill the plan was always to drive. That’s when I started doing my trial drives, with the main aim just to get us out of trouble when there weren’t enough drivers available. But at Broken Hill there just aren’t enough trials to get your licence in two years,” Coad said.

“The option was to drive down to trials at Mildura, but with a six-hour round trip it just wasn’t doable with running our building business and working horses,” he said.

“But once we made the move down here, I could power through them, and I was just pumped to finally get my ticket a few weeks ago.”

Coad piloted former Tasmanian pacer Only In Rome (Bettors Delight) to victory in the TAB Make a Date With Play Pace at Globe Derby Park on Tuesday at the juicy odds of $26.

“We took three horses over and to be honest we didn’t really know if any of them were real winning chances. We’d been balloted out of the Friday night Mildura meeting (which had a massive 140 starters over 12 races), so we wanted to get them a run,” he said.

“We’d never been to Globe Derby, so we decided to make the trip over for me to have a steer there and have a look at the place! I was itching to get that first win away so it was a pretty good day.”

Coad and his partner Reilly Blight are based at South Merbein with the aim of establishing themselves professionally in the sport.

“I grew up at Red Cliffs (south of Mildura) and I missed the place when I moved to Broken Hill for the business, which we still own,” he said.

“It’s working out well for us – we’ve got eight horses in the stable, but looking to get up to about 12, which would be comfortable for us.  We both share the work and we’re just ticking along, but we’ve had about a dozen winners so far.

“So Mildura is home for me, and I met Reilly when I was in Broken Hill but she’s loving it down here as well and it’s been a good move for us.”

Only In Rome was having only his second start for the stable, and is one of two pacers sent to Coad by Tasmanian trainer Ben Yole.

“The other was Sir Jujon (Mr Feelgood), which also won at his second start for us, so we’ve got a good thing going with Ben!  He’s looking at sending up a few others up that are on a suitable low assessment.  Once they’re down in that grade it’s hard to place them in suitable races in Tasmania, but they’re suited in Victoria,” he said.

Coad, who is the nephew of Mildura horsemen David and Andrew Vozlic, said he’d been around horses all of his life, but only got serious about the sport in recent years.

“I do love it and now I’m enjoying the driving side of things too.  I don’t plan to drive all of our horses, but I think with some horses, it helps to be working with them every day.  And it’s good to have the (five-point) concession as well.”

The Coad stable has four runners engaged in tomorrow afternoon’s Mildura meeting (only 123 horses accepted this week!) and has picked up a catch drive using his concession claim for local trainer Ian Campbell.

by Terry Gange, for Harnesslink