Des holds the ticket across all three codes

When it comes to racing, Des Nolan is heading up an elite club – one of the few trainers in Australia ever to be registered with all three racing codes.

Nolan grew up with harness racing in his blood, but a few years back sealed a lifetime interest in greyhound racing with a trainer’s ticket. And since September he’s had a thoroughbred licence as well.

“We’re racing two trotters, two thoroughbreds and two greyhounds at the minute,” Nolan, of Globe Derby Park, said.

“We all love it. My wife Angela has her stablehand licences and to add to that, our daughter Annalise, who’s 10, is already a pony trots driver as well,” he said.

Des is the grandson of esteemed Adelaide trainer Dinny Nolan, who heavily influenced Des’s love of racing.

“He had horses like Captain Sandy (for a time in the 1950s was the highest stakes earning horse in either code), Para Rip (Inter Dominion campaigner) and for a while Floodlight who was an out and out champion. They were some of the nicest horses running anywhere in Australia at that time,” Nolan said.

“He lived at Plympton, which was a big horse area back then, and there were trotting and gallops trainers based there. My grandfather used the winnings from Captain Sandy to buy a thoroughbred and intended to get a dual licence to train him,” he said.

“The authorities at that time wouldn’t grant him a licence, though, so he ended up having to send it to another trainer. Thankfully for me times have changed a little! So it was always an ambition of mine to have a dual code licence.”

Des said while his grandfather encouraged his passion for horses, his dad Barry was not so enthusiastic.

“Dad was a trainer himself, but he was very strict. He was very clear that I was going to have a ‘proper’ job and didn’t want me to take on the horses at all,” Nolan said.

“We clashed a fair bit, so I went and started working for a magnificent horseman in thoroughbred trainer Joe Woods, who was on the same street as us, Raymond Avenue, in North Plympton. There were about 10 harness and thoroughbred stables along the street.

“I was about 14 when I started there, and I really wanted to be an apprentice jockey. That was my hope, but Joe broke it to me that I was going to be too tall, and I did end up about six feet!

“So I just kept mucking out boxes and working at the stables. On slow work days we would ride the horses to West Beach, about four miles down and four miles back. Then on trackwork days, we would ride to Morphettville, a group of us together. We’d ride from Raymond Avenue across the ANZAC Highway – we’d wait for a break in the traffic, and the traffic would slow down for us and across we would go.

“In the afternoon I would often feed up for another trainer Ian Thomas, who was a racing journalist at the Advertiser and would be off at work in the afternoons, so I would do his horses. Then at night I started walking greyhounds, helping out a trainer called Kerry Murphy.”

Nolan went on to hold both gallops and harness racing trainer’s licences at times over the years, but his career ultimately ended up in racing services. He and his wife Angela now run the horse supplies stores Horseshoes R Us and Racing Supplies SA.

“I’m a certified farrier and worked as a raceday farrier at the Adelaide gallops for many years too. But I had to give that away after a bad horse-riding accident when I broke a vertebrae in my back,” Nolan said.

“That sort of sidelined my training for a long time, but I got the urge to get back to it a few years ago, and got my trots licence back, then I thought I would have a try with the greyhounds. And since September I’ve had all three!

“We’ve had six winners with our two dogs; we had a runner on Monday at Globe Derby, and our first two starters at the gallops at Morphettville on Melbourne Cup Day.”

Nolan said another emotional family milestone also came at the weekend.

“Annalise had her pony Twoie back at the races for the first time in two years on Saturday night, after he contracted a rare fungal disease and almost died. There’s only known to have been six cases in horses in Australia,” he said.

“The night I got my last harness racing winner, at Wayville in 2019, was the same day we were basically called out to the Morphettville Equine Clinic to say goodbye to Twoie because they were going to have to put him down.

“We talked the vets into giving him a couple more days on the treatment he was on and amazingly he pulled through. It’s really taken all of the two years since for him to get back to 99 per cent full health but he’s come through his run on Saturday really well and Annalise couldn’t be happier.”

Nolan said he was now setting his sights on his next winner.

“I had a dog winner in January, with Sydney Cove, and I was happy with the runs of our two gallopers on Cup Day. Our trotter Strawberry Mouse has had one run back from a spell and is in on Monday again at Globe Derby,” he said.

“Harness racing is in my blood, but I really don’t mind where the next winner comes from. This is something I always wanted to do. You’re only here once, and it’s taken me 50 years, but I got there!”

By Terry Gange for Harnesslink