First winning drive worth the wait for Hibell

The winning salute took a lot longer than harness racing junior driver Leah Hibell would have liked but when it finally came it was so pronounced, you’d never have guessed there was a time she couldn’t even lift her arm at all.

The road to the winner’s circle at Cambridge on Del Shannon (Muscle Hill) was certainly a rocky one for Hibell after she fell from her horse at the age of 13, snapping her right arm in six places.

Hibell was a talented rider, in the New Zealand squad to compete in Australia, when she crashed in a show hunter event at Pukekohe.

The injury was so severe, with extensive nerve damage, that she spent the next year in hospital.

“It took nine months for the bone to heal, and I was in and out of hospital for two years after that before it got back to normal. It was a bit of a setback for my teenage years.”

Hibell was 17 when, quite by chance, she met Graham Bowen, one of White Star Stable’s biggest supporters and now Cambridge Raceway chairman.

Hibell had called Bowen’s Brogden Horse Transport to collect a two-year-old she’d bought and, while she had no involvement with harness racing, took up his offer to help out at Brogden Lodge.

Since the age of seven, when Hibell started out at pony club, she knew her future lay with horses or animals of some description but her thoughts of making a career as a vet nurse went out the window after she was introduced to Nicky Chilcott.

“I had my 18th birthday at Nicky’s and spent a bit more than a year working at the stable.”

Hibell then moved to Graeme Rogerson’s Tuhikaramea operation and was there for three years, gaining a handful of raceday drives, before she returned to White Star in the hope of more opportunities.

Chilcott, in the same softly softly way she moulds her young racehorses, set about giving Hibell the feel of racing with regular drives on the stable’s galloping pacemaker Ally Mae, a reliable, if limited, actor on racenight.

“You can sit kids down and watch videos with them, but they’ve got to get out there,” Chilcott said.

In time, Hibell graduated to better horses, also teaming with the likes of other well-behaved conveyances like Phoebe Majestic.

Chilcott was initially happy to watch Hibell sit in and run home but in recent weeks she upped the ante and urged her pupil to start making decisions in the running, not just stay on the markers.

“I told her that sometimes she’d make the wrong decision, but she had to make them.

“She did that last night and coming out from three fence to take the lead was the winning of the race. It was a really good drive.

“Leah asked me for instructions and, knowing you can fill kids’ heads with too much, I just said he’s the best horse in the race bar Kimkar Dash (Skyvalley) so be positive.

“If he steps good and you get on the rails early and you think he’s feeling good and you want to go, do it. He can sit outside them.

DEL SHANNON REPLAY

“I like Leah because she listens and asks questions. Kids drive on confidence, and she’ll keep improving. I hope she does well because she’s a terrific worker.

“She’s dead keen and wants to make a career of it. It’s important we give these kids a go as we don’t have enough of them.”

Hibell, 22, who is now sponsored by Brogden Lodge, says she’s really enjoying driving and knows she’s lucky to get the chances offered by the boss.

“Driving is awesome, but even training would be cool and I’m in the perfect barn to learn.”

Hibell says it has been quite stressful waiting the best part of a year and a half to get her first winner.

“Everybody else I know got there quite quickly but I’ve had a lot fewer goes than them. This was only my 42nd drive.”

Hibell said she started getting a little nervous when she reached the 400 metre mark with a clear lead.

“I was trying not to jump the gun. I thought sit, sit. But I had a peek in the straight and decided it was time to go and at the 100 I was pretty confident.”

HIbell allowed herself a wide smile then but, determined “not to get into trouble for saluting early”, she waited until she passed the post before raising her whip in jubilation.

The win was the first of three on the night for the stable, which is running hot with 10 wins in the last six weeks, Sacred Mountain and Village Rebel later taking Chilcott’s total for the season to 24, setting her up for her best season in 18 years.

by Barry Lichter, for White Star Stables