Talent galore has us in good shape

There’s a plethora of outstanding young driving talent right across Australia which undoubtedly augurs well for the future of our harness racing industry.

As the season end nears, if the youngsters aren’t leading the pack, they are snapping at the heels of their older, established and more experienced seniors.

In Victoria, young guns in James Herbertson, 22, of Ballarat, and Jack Laugher, 23, of Bendigo, are shining lights with Herbertson doing his best to cling to a narrow lead in the State Drivers’ premiership as Mark Pitt keeps lead driver for the powerful Emma Stewart stable, keeps challenging.

With just 12 days remaining in season 2022, Herbertson is on 225 wins, with Pitt (who is aged only 28 himself) is on 221.  Laugher has had another solid season with 181 (within reach of his 195 in 2021).

Another talent is Ryan Sanderson, of Charlton, who is not going under the radar these days, with an increasing list of trainers noticing the youngster’s development.

Sanderson recently notched up his 100th winner for the season—easily eclipsing his previous best tally of 60.

“I’ve been a bit more consistent, but I’m also getting more drives and on better horses. And that does make a difference,” he said.

“I was sitting on 99 wins leading up to the latest Charlton meeting and I reckon I probably had the whole town behind me—but it wasn’t to be and I got to the 100 not long after at Mildura.

“I ended up with a double and I don’t mind going up there. It’s been pretty good to me over the years and the trainers give me plenty of support.”

Sanderson said his family—dad Shane, mum Naomi and sister Abby—were thoroughly enjoying being based at Charlton and training out of the club’s training Centre.

“It’s very central to a lot of tracks. Mildura is three hours away, and then Cranbourne is maybe a little bit more, but then there’s all the others that are a lot closer,” he said.

Shane Sanderson began training in the mid-1990s in Queensland before moving to Sydney when Club Menangle developed a state-of-the-art training Centre. The family then moved to central Victoria early last year, seeing more opportunities for Ryan and Abby to flourish as drivers.

This season has seen Ryan tick many boxes with his first metro driving double at Melton, his first group two feature, several Pacing Cup victories and his 100th career win in late March.

“Probably my main highlight was driving Hatchback in the ID22 Trotters Final at Melton,” he said.

“I wasn’t nervous, surprisingly – I was more really excited because there wasn’t much pressure on me. We had no luck, but it was awesome.”

Ryan said he wasn’t sure how many kilometres he covered each week to fulfill driving engagements, but “my weekly fuel bill is always around $600 to $700”.

“My car usually gets a service after every 10,000 kms. That comes around pretty quickly so I’ve pushed it out to 15,000 kms,” he laughed.

“I just love driving at Melton, but I would have to say that Swan Hill is where I seem to have my most success.”

Ryan said he had a lot of admiration for his rival junior concession drivers.

“They can all drive that’s for sure. Just take Tayla French who won the Australasian Young Drivers’ championship here in Victoria – that was so good.”

by Terry Gange, for Harnesslink