Future well-defined for emerging trainer

Horse training is a notoriously demanding pursuit, but few could claim to be busier than current leading Victorian harness racing trainer Kate Hargreaves.

Still in her 20s, Hargreaves is riding an impressive rise to success – so much so that she now finds herself training 40 horses while also, somehow, managing to continue in her full time “day job” as a primary school teacher.

Bendigo-based Hargreaves currently leads the State Trainer’s premiership in Victoria, ahead of several big names who have dominated in the sport for decades – Emma Stewart, Anthony Butt/Sonya Smith and Andy Gath.

In any given week, Hargreaves and her training partner Alex Ashwood travel hundreds of kilometres to opposite ends of the State, placing their teams in suitable company in centres as far flung as Mildura and Cranbourne.

“I don’t really have any spare time and I don’t get a lot of sleep!” Hargreaves joked.

“I’m up and at the stables by six in the morning, do that for a couple of hours then head to school – then I’m back at the stables after work and the doing administrative work.  It’s busy but I kind of like the balance between my work and being with the horses,” she said.

Hargreaves said she initially had hoped to be a race driver, but found opportunities were too few and far between, and the training partnership with Ashwood was formed around 2016 when they raced a trotter named Aldebaran Pete.

Hargreaves trained nine winners in season 2017-18, then 24 in 2018-19 and an impressive 119 in an extended 2020 season.  So far this season, just over three months in, she has trained 40 winners.

“Things have really stepped up in the past year or two, and probably this year in particular, it is getting hard.  So if we keep going the way we are, the plan is eventually that I will move to full time training, or perhaps initially at least cut back to part time teaching,” she said.

A record-breaking fifth country trotters cup was in the bag for Kate Hargreaves at Mildura on Friday night (Photograph: Charli Masotti)

While many trainers are driven by the competitive aspect of the sport, for Hargreaves, it’s all about the animals.

“I was born into it – my dad Jeff trained and drove horses for years while my older brother Brett and I were growing up, and I was horse-mad from the moment I was born,” she said.

“I helped dad, I drove in pony trots and I helped (Great Western trainer) Peter Manning in the school holidays.  Peter was just fantastic.  He would put you on anything to give you a go and help you learn.

“Kerryn Manning and Grant Campbell have also been very influential on what I’ve learned, and Kerryn is still one of those people I very much look up to. Dad and Mum (Joan) never really pushed us into the sport – I just loved it, but they’ve supported both Brett and I every step of the way, our whole family has.

“I love the animal more than the game.  I love being around them getting to know them and different personalities.  They’re such intelligent creatures and to do all the work with them, then see them race gives me such a sense of pride,” she said.

“I see them as living beings with feelings and intelligence, rather than as a business.”

While the Hargreaves work ethic is one key element in her success, the deeds of her trotter Well Defined are also playing a major role.

Well Defined has so far won an unprecedented five trotters’ cups this season, most recently a heart-stopping last-bound victory in the Mildura Trotters Cup on Friday night.  He leads the Country Trotters Championship by a huge margin.  He also became only the third horse to win the race from a handicap of 40 metres or more (Satin Pride 1968 and Just Money 1971 won off 60 yards).

“He’s got a very big heart and knows where the line is, but to win off the 40-metre handicap at Mildura – I was just so proud of him,” Hargreaves said.

“I think he’s found his niche in country cups – he loves the stand and he loves the distance.  He’s one of my favorites, along with another trotter Don’t Care.  Both of them are part-owned by my brother Brett and his fiancé Brooke, so those wins are even more special.”

Well Defined has now been sent to the spelling paddock, and Hargreaves said he would be aimed for a return for the next round of Trotters Cups from September.

Terry Gange

NewsAlert PR Mildura