Tears flow in emotional victory

Harness racing driver Stacey Towers looked to the sky and asked for a little help from above before scoring an emotional success in Friday night’s Tiffany Murray Memorial Pace at Echuca.

Towers partnered Im Harvey Specter, a horse trained by her brother Michael, to claim a maiden win in the race run in honour of her late friend.

The 36-year-old settled three back along the inside for much of the event, but got a dream passage through along the pegs when Kate Gath veered away from behind the leader aboard Greg Norman-trained Royal Cadence.

Im Harvey Specter then took the gap and shot for home along the sprint lane to score easily by more than 7m.

“Michael and I thought we’d just duck back to the pegs and hope for a bit of luck, and when Kate came off down the back, I thought I think tonight is my night,” Towers said.

“When I went for the sprint lane, he run up a bit and I was like ‘please no, don’t get a wheel!’

“I yelled at him. I think Tiff was with us tonight.”

Shortly after, Emma Stewart added a Moama Bowling Club Echuca Pacing Cup trifecta to recent one-two-three finishes in the Horsham and Charlton features.

And it was Demon Delight who backed up his Charlton triumph with a strong front-running success in the $35,000 Group 3.

The victory, which came ahead of stablemates Like A Wildfire (Leigh Sutton) and Phoenix Prince (Jodi Quinlan), made it back-to-back wins for driver Jackie Barker, who is starting to build a really strong record with the six-year-old. Demon Delight, who is raced by Pam and Russell Hockham, has now won 13 races from 34 starts for close to $250,000 in prizemoney.

And it was also an all-female training and driving triumph in the $20,000 Group 3 Arch Electrical Group Echuca Trotters Cup after Zarem got home to score for Carla Innes-Goodridge and Ellen Tormey.

The win was a Group-level first for both Innes-Goodridge and Zarem, who has now claimed 10 victories for over $120,000 in prizemoney.

Get Lucky (Andy Gath/Kate Gath) and Moreton Bay (David Jack) were second and third.