Shane’s girl’s all grown up and winning

Victorian harness racing hobby trainer Shane Hall’s square-gaiting mare Montana Chevelle (Sebastian K) is “finally growing up” and putting together a nice resume in her five-year-old season.

The mare recorded her third win from her past five starts in the VHRC Renown Silverware Trot at Maryborough on Thursday (May 23), when handled by in-form Melton reinsman John Caldow, who posted a treble.

See the results and replays, click here.

An elated Hall, who’s from Sedgwick near Bendigo, said he was relieved the mare, bred by him and his wife Kim, was finally finding her feet in the racing game.

“She has always had the ability, ever since a two-year-old, but she kept on doing silly stuff, trying to run through the mobile or go around it, and putting herself in spots where there was no room,” Hall said.

He said Montana Chevelle went well early in her 3yo season, but the more she raced the more she started to “rip and tear” again.  She then lost most of her four-year-old season with quarter cracks in two feet.

“Just keeping her sound and stopping her from getting ‘over the top’ has been a bit of an art.  But that was a pretty solid run at Maryborough.  It was the first time she’s had that sort of pressure right through a race so we were rapt,” Hall said.

“I think it really has just been a maturity thing.  It’s part of the process.  As they start to get fit, they start jumping out of their skin and probably seeing things that aren’t there. Sometimes it’s just a question of being patient until they are ready in themselves.”

Hall, whose late dad Stan and uncle Kevin were involved in the sport, gravitated to greyhound racing earlier in life, but switched to harness racing about 15 years ago.

“Plenty of people told me it was out of the frying pan into the fire!” he laughed.

“I worked at the abattoir as a beef slaughterman for 40 years with (harness racing trainers) Joe Attard and Greg and Steve Leight.  At one stage Joe gave me a horse that had a pastern problem, and I threw him out in the paddock and just let him be.

“I wasn’t really interested in racing him, but once his pastern healed, he was running around like an idiot. Joe didn’t want him back, so I jogged him for a while, then gave him to another friend Gary Pekin to race.”

The horse was Hatesafeed (Armbro Operative), which went on to win eight races from 26 starts.  Obviously, Hall was hooked, and went on to get his trainer and driver’s licenses. He prepares his team on the couple’s property, with fast work nearby at Ross Graham’s track.

Montana Chevelle is the latest of his handy trotters produced from an unraced pacing bred mare Hilltown Ashley (Our Sir Vancelot) out of Higher Than Hope, a mare also associated with Joe Attard.

“I was always told the mare side is pretty strong in the trotting and if you take that sort of horse to a trotting sire you breed speed into your trotter – which probably means you might get a fast trotter or a slow pacer!” he laughed.

“Her first foal was Hilltown Yankee (Yankee Spider) who ran second in the (Group 1) Redwood, and won a Maoris Legend for me, which meant we got a free service to Yankee Spider – and Iona Spider (12 wins) was the result,” he said.

“Iona Spider was a lovely horse and probably could have won more races. In the 2yo VicBred Super series heats she had no luck and didn’t make the final but won the Silver final and they ran the same time as the Gold.  In the (2yo) Breeders Crown she galloped, and they ran the first quarter in 27 but she still held on and ran third.

“She now has her first foal on the ground – a lovely filly by On A Streak. We also have another half-brother to Montana Chevelle, by Kvintet Avenger, who we’ve named Angove.  And a gelding, Ziptie (Volstead) from a mare Lets Be Happy that Yabby Dam Farms has had a lot of success from.

“We really enjoy being involved in the sport, the excitement and the people.  And when you have bred one, and you’ve done everything with it, breaking, shoeing, all the work and you finally get them doing things right, it’s very rewarding,” he said.

by Terry Gange, for Harnesslink