Curly James grabs last stride victory

Rookie horsewoman Courtney Laker became the youngest harness racing trainer to lead in a Shepparton Cup winner after Curly James (A Rocknroll Dance) took out the Group 2 feature tonight (Jan. 13).

Curly James is the only horse the 19-year-old Laker has in work and the pair now boast a record of three wins from eight starts.

Curly James enjoyed the run of the race on the back of the leader Kanena Provlima who appeared to have the cup in its keeping halfway down the home straight, however under the urging of David Moran, Curly James grabbed a last stride win.

“I can’t even describe the emotion, I’m so excited,” Laker said.

“Just the pressure and the relief and the achievement to get Curly up to this stage is unbelievable, training in my first season and to have my first horse like Curly is amazing,” she said.

Parker revealed her grandmother gave her the choice between a car or a horse for her 18^th birthday present.

“I chose the horse which turned out to be Curly,” she said.

Laker admitted she wasn’t confident during the race as the horse appeared to lose ground on the turns.

“I actually thought he was gone down the back but then he kicked on again and then I thought we’d got beaten on the line,” she said.

Moran admitted he had his hands full during the race.

“We put a chord on him tonight as he had just been getting a bit keen in some of his races and while he had been working with it at home tonight, he resented it so he didn’t want to run the arm and then got up the track a bit,” Moran said.

“He was a bit uncomfortable, so his performance tonight was better than it looked on face value – he didn’t want to go down the back so to dig deep and pick the leader up was a great win,” he said.

Moran has been by Laker’s side at the Shepparton training complex for the past year.

“Courtney is a young woman who is doing a good job and for her and her family to get a horse like this is terrific, they put a lot of time and money into the industry so it’s very special,” he said.

by John Dunne, for Harnesslink