Fergie

Fifty seven year old northern horseman Peter Ferguson doesn’t chase the drives these days but has no plans on giving driving away.

“I’m happy driving for the stables I’m driving for. In the North Island pretty much all of the main stables have got their own drivers so there are not as many drives going as there was back in the day,” Ferguson said.

Peter was born on the North Shore of Auckland and was always exposed to harness racing.

“Dad (Barry) used to go up to Kumeu and help Doug Mangos and Dave Gibbons, so that’s how he got started.”

In the mid 1970s Barry decided to move and he bought a property at Cambridge.

“He used to go and help John Langdon who was training thirty horses by the track there. I used to go there as a kid and do the waters and clean the boxes. When I started driving Dad only had a few horses, so he needed a few more to get me drives at the trials. You had to have twenty five drives at the trials to get your licence. He bought a couple of horses off the dog tucker truck. One of them was Sobriety and he was my first drive and first winner.”

That win came at the Te Awamutu meeting in March 1986.

“He‘d won at the trials for me a couple of times and when Dad put senior drivers on him at the races he’d get naughty.”

Although Peter was keen on harness racing he did think of other career options.

“I left school, started an accountancy course at Wintec and did a year and a half of that. Going to the Manawatu and Hutt Park driving for Ken Webber meant that I wasn’t at Wintec very often.”

Ferguson and his tutors decided the horses were getting in the way of his study so the accountancy course fell by the way.

“I took the punt, thinking I could always go back to Wintec.”

Not long afterwards Ferguson had his first drive for Ken Webber and subsequently worked for the Cambridge horseman for a few hours in the morning.

“We were heading down to Hutt Park, one thing led to another and we were away.”

Ferguson drove eighty one winners for Webber including Cinimod Junior which provided him with his first Group One win.

“Back in the day Ken was getting horses that weren’t rock hard fit. He’d do a lot of galloping with them and we started winning races. Without Ken I probably wouldn’t have stayed in the game.”

Ferguson says Webber was under pressure from owners to put senior drivers on horses in some of the big races, but he remained loyal to his junior reinsman.

“Without that things might have been a bit different. He was the biggest influence when it came to making it a full time career.”

Ferguson won six races driving Cinimod Junior.

“He and Ken had a real affinity. He would stand in the paddock and watch Ken’s every move. They really clicked.”

Webber who now lives in the Manawatu, recently turned eighty six and Ferguson keeps in regular contact with him.

“He still follows the races and his son Chris owned Christopher Dance that ran second in the Northern Derby and was sold to Perth.”

As the winners started to grow, Ferguson was able to obtain better quality drives and he remembers driving Defoe in a junior drivers race in Auckland in April 1989.

“RJ (trainer Robert Dunn) rang me from the boat and asked me if I could drive the horse in a junior driver’s race.”

Ferguson was the first junior driver to win the New Zealand Junior Drivers Premiership four years in a row.

“I had a lot of support from trainers that had two or three horses. It was hard enough then, but it’s probably impossible these days for a North Island driver to win a Junior Driver or Senior Premiership. After the first one it became a target ever year. In 1988 I beat Anthony Butt by one.

His premiership winning drive was in a penalty free race at the Manukau Trotting Club meeting at Pukekohe on 27^th July.

Ferguson began his long association with Doug Gale in the mid 1990s.

“Once I started driving for him, I ended up driving the whole team. We had a great relationship. Wendy and I used to go up and stay at Doug’s when he was on holiday and look after the horses.”

Gale trained at Helensville using Muriwai Beach.

“It was beautiful up there. You could work them as far as the eye could see both ways. It was like running on carpet. He had a lot of success with horses that had gone sore and he’d revitalise them. He then started going to the yearling sales and had a lot of success with the young ones, with horses like Anvil Gale and Kate’s First. They took him and I to another level.”

Ferguson’s first of six Group One wins for Gale was with Anvil Gale in the 1996 New Zealand Sires’ Stakes Two Year Old Final at Addington.

“I didn’t get to drive him in the heat because I was flying from Auckland to Christchurch and when we got to Christchurch there was fog over the airport. I have never seen anything like it. I could see Addington Raceway and see the horses going round the track. They told us we were going to fly back to Auckland and I said we might as well, because my drive has just gone round the track and I’d just watched it.”

Anvil Gale was part-owned by Graeme Beirne.

“We’ve had our disagreements but we get on really good now. He’s a great owner for the industry and has a lot of horses everywhere. He’s passionate about it and he’s not scared to say what he thinks. He’s the sort of guy we need more of in the game.”

Another good horse Beirne owned and Gale trained was Kate’s First. Ferguson drove her to win fifteen times.

“She was a real tradesman type of horse. She was tough. Megaera and her were the top dogs in the fillies races that year. She took us to a lot of places, winning the Queensland Oaks, she ran second in the Australian Oaks and then came back and was the forgotten horse in the Auckland Cup.”

Kate’s First was 5/6 in the betting in the 1997 Auckland Cup.

“I probably drove her differently than I would have as a young horse. It was obviously over two miles at Auckland and we snuck up the inside and won. That was amazing. I’d won Group races but that was the next level again.”

Another top pacer Peter drove was Mi Muchacho.

“He was probably the best horse I’ve ever driven. He was plagued with unsoundness issues. He was probably the only chance I ever had and will ever have, of winning a New Zealand Cup.”

Mi Muchacho was favourite in the 2005 New Zealand Cup.

“I turned for home with a handful of horse and I couldn’t let him go. He ended up galloping. He was a freak. After being two and a half months off the scene he also won the Auckland Cup.”

Ferguson drove Mi Muchacho to win fourteen races.

He also had success driving for Pat and Mike O’Brien and Gareth Dixon.

“Anne and Steve Phillips were putting me on some of their horses and they had horses with Gareth. Horses like Ebony Gem. So I started driving a lot more for Gareth and Kerry Hoggard. I was stable driver for them for quite some time and I had a lot of success.”

Ferguson won the Group One 2008 Northern Oaks for Dixon, driving Lizzie Maguire.

“She was just a great filly. She had speed and could stay.”

Another highlight of his career was winning two races on Harness Jewels Day at Ashburton in 2007 with Lizzie Maguire and the Jeff Crouth trained Running On Faith.

“It was pretty special. The Jewels were just starting off back then. Crouthy was a big supporter of mine and Dad knew him quite well. She (Running On Faith) was just tough. She sat three wide that day beating One Dream who’d been the star filly.”

Ferguson had another great supporter in Steven Reid.

“I’d driven off and on for Reid man. I said to him one day that it was about time he put me on a decent one. He said ‘I’ve got one.”

That horse was Gold Ace.

Ferguson won ten races on the entire including the Group One New Zealand Sires’ Stakes Final, the Group One New Zealand Derby and Group One Harness Jewels Three Year Old Emerald.

“He was a great horse and Steven and Simon (McMullen) did a great job. Steven is a very good trainer and every now and then he pops his head up with a nice horse.”

Peter also represented New Zealand in the 2009 World Drivers Championships in Norway, finishing second. He travelled to the WDC with good friends Steve and Anne Phillips.

“They do all their warmups before the races and the races are ten minutes apart. Steve would spend time talking to the trainers finding out what the go was with the horses. It was an amazing experience and I made a lot of good friends out of it like Jason Barlett the American driver. A couple of years later we went over and stayed with him in New York. There are no whips and in the first race I won, all I did was rub the rein over its rump and I got fined $300 for too much rein. There was no enquiry. They would ring you up on the phone and tell you.”

He’s excited about the WDC coming to New Zealand in November.

“Personally I think our racing is the most competitive in the world. The rules have changed since I started driving, making it a little less competitive. Our record in the WDC is pretty good for a small country.”

Ferguson has driven on most tracks in this country and one of his favourites is Manawatu where he’s driven 374 winners.

“I cut my teeth at Manawatu and Hutt Park. I stopped coming when I was training the dogs. Since I stopped training them and Dylan (son) and Jo have taken over the training at home it’s freed me up so I’ve been coming to Palmy. I’ve had a bit of success and it got me started driving for Ray Green and Nat Delany. So it can be a starting point for many trainers and drivers.”

It was on one of those early trips south to the Manawatu that he met his future wife Wendy.

“Wendy used to stay at Ray Clapperton’s when Kenny and I used to come down with the horses.”

Wendy also had a connection with the racing industry as her uncles Cliff and Glem Goss train gallopers.

Clem trained the promising Gold Watch which had won six of his seven starts but fell and broke a leg in the 2022 Railway Handicap and had to be put down.

Outside of driving, Peter had a short stint as a trainer, gearing up thirty eight winners. And Wendy also trained for three seasons.

“It was so I could focus on the driving. She said she did a good job (laugher).”

Peter and Wendy have two children Dylan and Amy.

Dylan has become a successful reinsman and trainer and Amy is an early childhood teacher at Papamoa.

“Amy did Kidz Kartz, but she was always passionate about looking after little kids. She’s just had a little boy so that’s our first grandson. She says her boy is not going to get involved with the horses but we’ll see about that (laughter).”

Peter trained greyhounds for a few seasons after his neighbour Peter Henley got him interested.

“We got stuck in and really enjoyed it.”

Pedro Lee was the best dog Ferguson trained. He won a New Zealand Derby.

“He was called the “King of Cambridge”. I wanted to race at the best level. You get your satisfaction when you ‘re beating trainers like Brendan Cole and Dave Fahey.’

Peter also ran Kidz Kartz at Cambridge for a number of years.

“I found it very rewarding. The kids were amazing. Some of the top jockeys have come through like Ashley Strawbridge, Josh Oliver whose one of the top apprentices in Queensland, Bailey Rogerson, Kevin Myers boys and Tommy Hazlett’s kids. It’s something HRNZ haven’t put a lot of effort into.”

Ferguson’s current driving tally is 2,215, 293 for Doug Gale, 119 for Pat and Mike O’Brien and 112 for Gareth Dixon. He’s driven twenty Group One winners.

He’s won the New Zealand Drivers Premiership twice and that had a lot to do with his association with harness racing clubs.

“They were getting me down as guest driver and that encouraged people to bet.”

His best season was in 2008 when he saluted the judge 138 times.

He said another key to his premiership wins was his willingness to travel to Southland.

“I was very good friends with Cleland Murdoch who had a few horses with Brownie (Invercargill trainer Murray Brown) and without their support I wouldn’t have won the premiership. One of the years I won it I drove for 100 different trainers. It was a lot of work and I didn’t make a lot of money.”

Ferguson says he has no regrets and he’s proud of being one of nine drivers to have driven over 2,000 winners.

“As a driver I’ve invested money outside of the industry and I’ve done okay out of it.”

He hasn’t won a New Zealand Cup, but he still holds hope the opportunity will come along. And another goal is to win a major trotting race.

“Probably the Rowe Cup and the Dominion are races I haven’t won. I’ve driven some nice trotters over the years but haven’t really driven a champion trotter. You love winning Group races and I’d like to win a Group race for Dylan and Jo.”

After thirty nine seasons of driving a quote coined by his good friend Ken Barron still rings true.

“The only time success comes before work, is in the dictionary.”

by Bruce Stewart, for Harnesslink