Winning down south, but north move beckons

While Melbourne harness racing trainer Jody Woodham-Murdoch and husband Richard are enjoying a purple patch with consistent pacer Mac Shadow (Shadow Play), their minds are on the next exciting chapter in their lives.

“We’re on a lovely property at Monegeeta, in the Macedon Ranges, and we’ve been there since 2002. But we have the property on the market because we want to move up north to Mildura. Apart from being a semi-retirement plan, the biggest reason is to be closer to family,” Jody said.

“Our son and his partner have a 12-month-old daughter. There’s been a lot of face timing lately from where they live at Mt Barker, which is just out of Adelaide. They’re hoping to shift across a bit and be nearer to Mildura.”

Jody has just one horse in training at the moment—that being four-year-old gelding Mac Shadow, a horse they purchased in mid-February.

“He’s been awesome with four wins, two second placings and a third in nine starts for us. We got him off David Drury, from Mt Gambier, and just recently he put together three wins in a row. He was a bit off last start, but he seems right again now,” she said.

Mac Shadow will compete at Kilmore tonight (June 8). He’s drawn inside the back row in barrier eight in race five, the Jet Roofing Pace at 6.57p.m. Early markets have the pacer a $13 chance.

“On occasions we’ve worked four horses, and up to six, but in winter we always back off. Our property is on 20 acres and a 770m track is just great because we don’t need to go to the trials,” Jody said.

“We’ve got a barn with plenty of boxes and tack room, a really nice house and it’s close to Melton. While it will be sad to leave, we are both looking forward to making Mildura home. Richard just loves the warm weather, while I’ll be okay providing we have a good air-conditioner!”

The pair met at a Moonee Valley harness racing meeting and recently celebrated their 30th anniversary.

“Richard had always been a big fan of the trots and now he’s got a stable hand licence helping me and he does all the shoeing. My dad John taught him that craft,” Jody said.

“I grew up driving trotters for dad and some other trainers. While I enjoyed the driving part, I gave it away because I ended up with that many injuries.

“I’ll keep sticking to the training and leave the driving to Michael Bellman and James Herbertson. We’ll maybe get a few more in work up at Mildura when we get there.

“Over the years we’ve had some nice horses that have won two, three and four races. We’re hoping Mac Shadow gets better with age and he could be our very best. He’s very immature having only had 25 starts, but he’s learning all the time.

“My favorite horse was Go Betweens (Lis Mara). I know Richard can’t believe I say this because he only won two races. But he was a bridesmaid so often and despite finding a lot of obstacles in his races, still managed to run 15 or more placings.

“We’ve also had a lot of fun with Magic Cruiser (four wins), Shot To Stardom and Mighty Regal (three each) and Top Play (two).

“We retired Mighty Regal due to a few niggling problems, and he was rehomed at Broadford. He’s doing well at dressage and working with special needs children.”

by Terry Gange, for Harneslink.com