Tormey targeting 1000th winner today

It would certainly be most fitting if talented Central Victorian reinswoman Ellen Tormey could bring up the 1000^th win of her harness racing career today (Oct 9).

Tormey is sitting on 999 wins from her 16 seasons in the sulky – and has a good book of engagements back where it all began, at her former hometown of Charlton.

“I saw I was getting close to 1000 wins last year and I thought that would be nice milestone to reach, but I don’t think too much about those things. It’s a bit of a shock though when I really think back to where I started” Tormey said.

“I still get an adrenaline rush going out there – I definitely still enjoy driving, but it’s a lot harder now. There’s a lot more travel involved and the days are longer.  Back when I started, we would have eight or nine races on a card, now more often than not, there are 11 or 12, so they’re big days,” she said.

Tormey, now based at Bendigo, is putting together what looks likely to be her best ever season.  She has 108 winners, within sight of her personal best of 133 in 2022, and has eclipsed the century of wins in her past three seasons.

She has some handy drives at Charlton, including one that would be particularly sentimental, for her dad John, on Tupelo Beach in the feature race, the Community Bank Charlton and District Pace (Race 7).

“That’s still one of the things I love – any win I get with dad brings a lot of pleasure,” she said.

“But every win is special.  I’ve never driven for a massive stable, I’ve had a lot of little supporters along the way, and I wouldn’t have got there without a lot of people who’ve helped me out and put their trust in me and put me on their horses.”

Tormey grew up in the sport, with her businessman dad a hobby trainer at Charlton, but the seeds were sown for a career in the sport when, as an 11-year-old, she wrote to world record reinswoman Kerryn Manning, asking if she could visit Manning’s Great Western stables in the school holidays.

“I used to watch her with dad on the TV and she would drive five winners some nights at Moonee Valley. She rang me and invited me down to the stables and after that I was there pretty much every school holidays.  Kerryn was absolutely my biggest influence,” Tormey said.

“Not only as a driver, she’s a great trainer as well and it was a privilege to learn from her. I was so lucky to spend a lot of time with her.”

Tormey got her driver’s licence in the 2006-07 season and didn’t waste time in getting her first winner.

“It was at my second start, and it was at Charlton on a horse for dad called Franco Whiz.  I ran second on him at my first drive – Kerryn beat me that day and taught me a lesson!” she laughed.

As a junior driver, Tormey put in the big hours on the road, going anywhere she could for drives, but most often she beat the well-worn path to Mildura, where many young drivers build their driving experience.

“Mildura is the place I learnt a lot very quickly in my early days.  There were some good drivers who were competing there and in the early days I used to travel up with Chris Svanosio, Todd Matthews and Danny O’Bree, usually for one or two drives,” she said.

“In saying that, though, a lot of good drivers used to go to Mildura, and going there and watching all the good drivers go around a small, tricky track was a good experience, too.

“I learnt to read a race and not to rely so much on a horse’s ability, but to judge speed and make your move at the right time.  It definitely means you need to use your head a bit more than down on the bigger tracks.”

The 33-year-old is still doing that long road trip, most recently last Friday (Oct 6) for a winning double that brought her within touch of the 1000-win benchmark.

“I was talking to a young driver up there who’s going for her licence, but she’d been told by another really experienced driver that he only had one tip for her – don’t drive!” Tormey said.

“But she’s doing exactly what I did.  She’s going to university and she has her backup plan in place.  When I started out, I went to uni and got a degree because I didn’t expect to get that far.  I thought that once I lost my junior claim that would be it for me – so if you take a chance, you never know!”

Full fields for today’s Charlton meeting: https://www.harness.org.au/racing/fields/race-fields/?mc=CH091023

by Terry Gange, for Harnesslink