Great night out for Wheeler family

When Brian Wheeler headed to Narrogin on Saturday night, he was confident his horses were a definite place chance, but he left the meeting a very happy man with a 100% winners to runner strike rate with his harness racing team.

Kicking off the meeting with a win in the first with the double westbred filly Honour The Eagle (Fly Like An Eagle), who started at $5 odds, it was the win in race four with Follow Rocknroll that would have stunned punters, with the five-year-old double westbred son of Follow The Stars getting up at $71 odds.

Although a last start winner at Bunbury on June 29, this week he was up against Blackrock who has been impressive at all four attempts this preparation, starting as the $1.45 favourite on the night, he led but was run down by Follow Rocknroll.

“I thought they could both run reasonable races but that little Follow Rocknroll we’ve had heaps of problems trying to get him to go smooth, but Saturday night he put the right foot forward,

“The filly has been a bit of a handful from the start, but she went to Aiden De Campo’s for a while, and he straightened her out a bit.”

Wheeler accredits the improvement in Follow Rocknroll’s gate to a change of gear and shoeing adjustment.

It was most definitely a family affair for the Wheeler camp, with both horses driven to victory by Trent Wheeler.

With a love of the game as strong as Brian Wheelers, it will come as no surprise that he has been the President of the Collie Harness Racing Club for 27 consecutive years, with the Collie club undoubtedly one of the only clubs that has a longstanding committee in place, with Peter Hemsley now at 30 or so years on the committee, as well as Wheeler’s wife Suzanne serving over 28 years.

Wheeler’s introduction to harness racing didn’t come from his family’s involvement, but instead from a group of mates that wanted to get involved.

Brian Wilson, the son in law of Grahame Wallrodt, Kevin Moir and Brian Wheeler soon found themselves the proud ownership group of a few pacers, and he’s been hooked ever since.

“We got a couple ourselves; My Dot was one of them, she was about four foot high and run a couple of places for us, and just from there we went on.

“Oh yeah, loved it (harness racing), I’ve been lucky that Sue my wife, and my daughter Hayley, everyone has been involved, and I have a mate, Peter Rob who does a fair bit of track work with us, I’ve been very lucky.”

In 2015, Wheeler claimed his biggest victory when he took out the $100,000 Group 1 Westbred 3yo Fillies Classic with Once Bitten, but it was his first ever winner almost 40 years ago that gave him his biggest thrill in the game,

“Our first winner, probably going back when Yes Mar won his first race, he was such a family pet, he smashed the cart in trials on the Wednesday night and we started him on the Sunday, Brian Clemens drove him at Collie and he got up, that was a big surprise, but he was just such a lovely horse.”

Yes Mar won his first race for the family in May 1986, and they’ve been hooked ever since.

“he’s done a lot of hard work to get a better class of horses to drive and he’s travelled everywhere,

“We bought some duds for him when he first started because we wouldn’t let him chase drives as a junior driver because we made him do his apprenticeship first, he couldn’t go chasing drives, he had to go to work,

“I think he thanks us for that now, but I’m very proud of him, and now my two grandsons are going to start driving in Pony Trots, so that will be a bit of a thrill too.”

For complete race results, click here.

by Ashleigh Paikos, for RWWA