Moran making every post a winner

Shepparton-based reinsman David Moran, 35, is on a hot harness racing winning streak at the moment.

In the space of two days, Moran claimed a double at Swan Hill on Friday and then a treble at the feature-packed Melton meeting the following night.

The bag of winners lifted his career tally to 742 victories with 1044 placings for stakemoney totalling a staggering $8M.

Moran warmed up at Swan Hill with a win aboard the Greg Fleming-prepared Red Hot Assassin (Four Starzzz Shark) in the Laser Electrical Pace and then took out the 2020 Group 3 Radio 3SH Swan Hill Pacing Cup with Our Millionaire (Million Dollar Cam) trained by Emma Stewart.

Moran allowed Our Millionaire to bowl along at ahead of affairs at a steady clip from the start. He had most of his rivals working hard to keep in touch, particularly when he let rip with a 26.4 third quarter, followed by a 27.8 final split.

It was no surprise that the mile rate of 1.56-3 for the 2790m marathon trip was a new track record. Our Millionaire now has two country cups to his name this season—having previously won the Horsham feature.

Club President Noel Watson said the Cup night was a huge success with more than 1400 people going through the turnstiles.

“A big number of families braved the wind, rain and flooded roads to attend the Halloween Party-Pacing Cup meeting,” he said.

“We had many volunteers who gave their time to man trick or treat stations, cook sausages and entertain the crowd. During the night we also raised money for Safe Shelter from the Domestic Violence Project – we’re still working out the total, but it’ll be in the thousands.”

Moran, who began driving in the 2008/09 season, has now won 10 Group 1 races, adding one to his tally at Melton on Saturday night.

Moran steered Hector (Bettor’s Delight) and Khafaji (Somebeachsomewhere) to early wins and then got warm favorite Ladies In Red (Mach Three) home in the big one—the $100,000 Benstud Standardbreds Queen of the Pacific Group 1. All of Moran’s Melton winners were prepared by Stewart, who is again sitting on top of the Victorian trainer’s premiership, after going home with five for the night.

Although the Stewart-Moran successes were the headline act of the Swan Hill Cup meeting, the Murphy clan from Dunnstown, near Ballarat, had every reason to be singing some happy tunes on their return trip from the meeting.

David Murphy, a respected trainer-driver, is a member of the popular Old Melbourne Road—a seven piece Irish-Australian folk rock band.

He combined with his son Brent to win the 3SH Morning Rush Pace with Isabella Princess (Hurrikane Kingcole) and then the Elders Pace with Iron Chariot (Julius Caesar).

Another son in Declan won the opening event, the Kiel Tiling Pace with Areuohkay (Elsu) for Janet Exell, who is enjoying a purple patch at present.

Sunbury-based horseman Craig Hoban was elated to win first-up with three-year-old gelding Quartzite (Pet Rock) at the Swan Hill circuit.

Hoban had never previously raced at the track —and wasn’t on course to see the victory as he attended his daughter’s concert.

“I work in with Freddy (Taiba) at the moment, so we agreed he’d go to Swan Hill and I took Sarah Anne to Melton the next night,” Hoban said.

“We found that Quartzite was good to jog, but as soon as the hopples went on, he had a few tricks. He seems like a confidence horse and that was lacking for a bit.

“But he worked super leading up to the race. We were reasonably confident, although Daryl (Douglas) our driver said he pulled too hard in the run, so we’ll work on that.”

Quartzite, raced by Mick Andreadis, won by nearly three metres from Bella Abby (Jordan Leedham) with Rubio (Jack Laugher) in third spot.

by Terry Gange, for Harnesslink