Everyone loves a first-time winner!

Nothing beats the thrill of a first win as a trainer or driver and the extended Nicole Lear team enjoyed every minute of her breakthrough training victory at the Shepparton harness racing meeting on Thursday (Nov 24).

Echuca-based Nicole has spent her whole life around horses, courtesy of her dad Wayne, but she has always had the urge to step beyond the station of stable hand.

She gained her trainer’s license at the end of last year and scored her first win at only her ninth start, with stable favorite, three-year-old square gaiter My Jerry (Bacardi Lindy), who had been runner up at three of his previous four starts.

“He’s been hanging just around the corner, with a few placings, and it was so good to get that first win for him, and for me!” Nicole said.

“It’s always the way with trotters, I just wanted him to trot all the way and do everything right, and he did that.  But it was very close, and from where we stood at the track, I wasn’t sure if Millee (Eddie Tappe) had just got us again.  She just got us last time at Shepparton from a very similar angle,” she said.

“But we were so stoked when the number 1 went up. It was a great feeling.”

Not only for the trainer and her driver Greg Sugars, but also for Nicole’s three-year-old daughter, Bridie, who claims “Jerry” as her own.

“He’s ‘her Jerry’ and when she’s around, no one else is even allowed to pat him!” Lear joked.

“He’s just a beautiful horse, very cheeky, but he is so gentle and good with Bridie – I love watching them together.”

Nicole said it had always been her ambition to get either a trainer or driver’s licence in her own right.

“I’ve always helped dad.  I just love the horses, getting out there and working them and being with them, but especially the trackwork.  I just thought I didn’t want to just be a stablehand for the rest of my life!” she said.

“I’ve only got the one in work and dad’s working about five at the moment. I work at a dairy farm, and I have Bridie as well, so life is busy, but dad and I have our horses at the one place, so it’s great that he can help me out if I can’t quite get to doing Jerry some days.”

The family’s involvement in harness racing also includes Nicole’s older sister Stacey, who is a race photographer in Tasmania.

The family races My Jerry on lease and Nicole said he had been in the stable since he was a yearling.

“Dad rang up (Kialla trainer) Steve O’Donoghue and asked if he would have anything suitable, and he suggested this horse,” she said.

“I do love the trotters and their action and when they do everything right it’s just so satisfying.  It’s always nice even when you get a placing, for all the time and effort you put into them. But to get that win was really special.”

by Terry Gange, for Harnesslink