Rob’s plan of attack

When your resume reads 1600 winners, there’s probably not a lot of studying of form guides required before a harness racing meeting.

And it’s a measure of his success that leading Menangle Park reinsman Rob Morris admits that even though he knows most of his rivals backwards, you still need a lot more than one plan of attack when you go onto the track these days.

Morris turned 30 last weekend and landed a winner on his birthday when Ziggy Rocks saluted.

He backed that up at Menangle’s mid-week meeting scoring with three-year-old former Kiwi pacer Polka Delight.

That gave one of the hardest-working reinsmen in the business an incredible 1600 winners since he landed his first winner as a 16-year-old at Penrith.

“The way racing is these days you probably need five plans and you have to wait and see what happens when the gates fold back and take it from there,” said Morris.

“You have to go with the race and let it unfold and sometimes there is such a thing as doing too much form and you can confuse yourself.

“I occasionally see some of the young drivers go out there with one plan in mind and when it doesn’t come off, they’re like a deer in the headlights.”

Morris has driven plenty of good horses in his 15 or so years in the sulky and is again in demand at Menangle tonight with a drive in all seven of the pacing events.

Always quick to credit other trainers for placing their trust in him, former premier trainer David Aiken has handed Morris his best drive of the night by booking him to handle his beautifully-bred five-year-old Max Delight, the $2.10 favourite for the $20,400 Garrards Horse And Hound Pace (1609m).

A last-start Menangle winner in a slashing 1:50, Max Delight has been the star of a small team the Victorian-based Aiken has been campaigning with in Sydney in recent weeks.

Morris also has an outside shot at winning Race 5, the $30,600 Group 3 August Gift Final as his wife KerryAnn has two runners.

Rob will drive outsider Don’t Need An Excuse, rated a $67 shot after drawing gate five while KerryAnn climbs into the spider herself to handle polemarker Held To Ransom ($34).

The record-breaking reinsman will also be hoping for a repeat performance with last-start winner Ziggy Rocks ($6) in Race 1, despite the awkward draw on the outside of the front line.

By Michael Court for HRNSW