McDonald shoots to the top

Former Victorian Troy McDonald admits he isn’t too worried about sitting at the top of the Tasmanian drivers’ premiership halfway through the harness racing season.

Instead, his main focus is on his own drives and doing the best he can on the track week to week.

In his seventh season of driving, McDonald clearly is in the box seat for premiership success, having already driven 47 winners this season, 12 clear of his nearest rival Rohan Hillier.

The biggest benefit to McDonald’s premiership chances is the backing of his employer and the nations leading trainer Ben Yole, who is closing in on his 1000th career training win.

The duo teamed up for a quartet of winners in Hobart on Sunday night, the first time that McDonald had driven four winners at a single meeting.

Somedan was the first winner for the Yole-McDonald combo in rating 75 to 105 event.

Despite handy mile form and his favourable pole draw, the gelded son of Somebeachsomewhere was able to hold the lead and score in 1m 57.1s, defying a betting drift ($4.40 out to $7.00)

“He was drawn good, and he loves the mile. He was able to get that nice breather through the middle stages,” said McDonald about the win.

“Generally, when he contests a mile, he draws poorly as he is sort of on that 70 rating, but the conditions of that race suits,” added the winning driver.

Kiavino Stride, also a gelded son of Somebeachsomewhere notched up the next winner for Yole and McDonald after racing outside the leader to score in a rating 60 to 74 event.

Also a notable drifter in the market ($4.00 out to $11), the pacer held off all the challengers in a driving finish which only saw a neck margin between the first five placegetters.

“He has been racing well, and he has his confidence up and I drove him confidently,” said McDonald about the win, which was the pacers third win in his past four efforts.

Tarleton Riley was able to score the claiming race of the evening with the gelded son of Stonebridge Regal appreciating a drop back to claiming grade to score a dominant 18-metre win in a mile rate of 2m 0.6s for the 2090-metre trip.

“He loves the claimers, and it worked out perfectly for him, and he charged home,” said McDonald about the pacers effort, who was well found by punters, backed in from $5.00 to be the $3.80 favourite.

Chalking up McDonald’s first driving quartet was Montana Lad in the second division of the rating 50 to 59 event.

The Bettors Delight gelding was first-up since 30 April, where he broke free of interference in running and was sent back to the trials by stewards due to his poor manners in a number of his previous starts.

“The key to his chances was to do everything right and he did, it looked his race, he got clear running from the 500 (metres) and did the rest himself,” said McDonald.

McDonald will be out to add to his season tally in Devonport on Sunday night, where he will have a large number of drives on the card that includes the $12,000 Ulverstone Cup, and the $12,000 Max McCormack for pacers that have earned less than $10,000 in prizemoney earnings.