Hobby trainer doubles up — from 150km away!

Regional Queensland harness racing trainer Karen Schulz celebrated her first-ever race-day double on Sunday (June 8) at Marburg – despite being nowhere near the track!

While Schulz was on grandparent duties in Dalby, more than 150 kilometres away, her husband Allan Godwin handled the strapping duties and got the chocolates with Gotta Dream (Gotta Go Cullect) and October Racketeer (Mr Feelgood).

“I’ve had a winner on consecutive days before, but never a double – and I had to watch on my daughter Kelsey’s phone,” Schulz laughed.

“But I did tell Allan that if he didn’t come home with a double today he’d be in trouble! Both of the horses have been going well. They both ran second last start and I thought they both could have won, so I was hoping that this might be the day,” she said.

It was one of three winners on the day for consistent reinsman Brendan Barnes (the other being Cullectingcardles (Gotta Go Cullect) for Ian Gurney.)

“Brendan has been terrific.  ‘October’ can be a little handful, and he was pulling hard and giving me grief. I was so close to selling him because I just knew he was a better horse than he was showing,” Schulz said.

“But we made a few gear changes and Brendan gets on with him really well.  The horses really seem to run for him.”

Schulz’s harness journey began more than a decade ago through her daughter Kelsey, who worked for trainers like Denis Smith and Chantelle and Pete McMullen.

“One day they put me on one of Denis’s trotters to do fastwork – that was the first time I had sat behind a horse, and they thought it was a bit of a joke. But the bug bit from there,” Schulz said.

“I married Allan and he’s a trainer too, although he takes a bit of a back seat now. We have a concreting business, and Allan does the concreting, I do the horses.”

Karen and Allan are based at Ironbark, about 10 minutes away from the Marburg track.

“We’ve got 22 acres and a jog track at home and we go into Marburg for our fastwork. It’s a great little harness racing community there,” Schulz said.

“Some days there might be 10 of us come in to work on the track and most of us are little trainers, with bigger trainers coming there too when it’s rained and they have water on their own tracks. We all work in with each other and help each other out, and it’s a great atmosphere,” she said.

“The track curator Ronny Wells (who was runner-up in October Racketeer’s race) was one of the first on the phone to me after we won!

“It’s just great to have the horses going well. It’s hard work and it really does give you a kick along.”

From Terry Gange for Harnesslink