Curtain falls on Cruisin Around’s career

Past Australian 3YO Trotting Colt/Gelding of the Year Cruisin Around has run his last race, with connections making the decision to call time on a career that netted almost $300,000 in prizemoney.

The Brent Lilley-trained squaregaiter was retired after his down-the-track finish in the South West Conveyancing Terang Trotters Cup on Saturday night.

That decision brought an end to a journey that spanned 84 starts and included 19 wins, highlighted by a rare Group 1 double – the Vicbred Super Series and Breeders Crown Series finals – during a stunning three-year-old campaign.

Cruisin Around, who is part of a vintage crop which includes Red Hot Tooth, Temporale, Sundons Courage, Maori Law, Big Jack Hammer and High Gait, was never quite able to recapture his best after suffering injury early in his four-year-old season.

Michael Hughes mentored him to those big-race victories through his early years, before he was moved on to Lilley for whom he won a Kilmore Trotters Cup and as recently as last June set an Australian record at his favourite track Bendigo.

Tanya McDermott, who runs the HRV HERO project that helps standardbreds transition to new lives off the racetrack, has agreed to take the son of Bacardi Lindy.

"His last four or five runs he's just told us he doesn't want to race anymore," managing owner Bill Hutchison said.

"He's done enough so he's going to Tanya and she does a good job rehoming all those horses.

"He deserves a better life and that's what he will get.”

HRV – Tim O'Connor