O’Reilly clocks up the Ks and wins

When you first meet young harness racing driver Sarah O’Reilly you get the impression, she’s quiet and unassuming.

But when she gets into the cart and moves into race mode the personality changes and it’s all business.

“She doesn’t say too much but is getting more confident and funnier. I know her friends and they aren’t quiet (laughter),” said Brian Norman a Southland trainer and one of her biggest fans and supporters.

Norman says while some other drivers can lose the plot and have a brain explosion, not Sarah.

“She doesn’t get into any speed duels and follows basic instruction well. And that’s how my horses get money.”

The O’Reilly name is synonymous with harness racing in New Zealand and her father Gerard has carved out a good career both driving and training. He’s trained over 180 winners and driven nearly 650.

“I was born into the horses and have been around them all of my life,” Sarah said.

She was educated at Rakaia Primary School before heading to Ashburton College and got her trials license on a horse called Sparkling Delight.

He was more than handy, running third behind Heaven Rocks and Mr Mojito in the 2017 Four-Year-Old Emerald at Ashburton and winning five races.

On leaving high school, Sarah began her fulltime harness career with Bruce Negus.

“I drove a lot of horses at the races for him, so it was all good learning.”

Negus provided O’Reilly with her first winner – Highland Reign, which won in April 2018 at the Banks Peninsula meeting.

She then worked at Cran and Chrissie Dalgety’s before recently moving to Brent White’s in Ashburton.

“I work at Brent’s in the morning and sometimes in the afternoon. If I don’t, I go and help Dad.”

Sarah highlighted Sirius (Sweet Lou-Star Express) as a horse to follow. A three-year-old owned by Graeme Anderson and trained by White, he recently won his maiden race at Ashburton by two and a half lengths.

Sarah without doubt is the most travelled junior driver in commission and either drives south with Sam Ottley, Blair Orange and John Morrison or jumps on a plane.

“It depends on the prices of the flights because they can get pretty expensive.”

She says the car trips are always fun.

“There’s always plenty of laughs so it doesn’t get boring. It does get tiring, so you sleep when you can.”

Sarah has become a regular on the Southern Harness circuit and has had good support from Michael House and Brian Norman.

“The trainers have been great in the south and I just love coming down.”

She’s the defending champion in the Junior Drivers Premiership and has a handy lead in this year’s premiership which is getting into the business end.

“I always worry about it no matter how far in front I am.”  She’s currently on forty-nine winners, seventeen clear of her nearest rival Ben Hope.

She’s now in her fifth year as a junior and has driven one hundred and seventy-three winners from 1,620 drives.

Sarah won the Junior Drivers Championship twice, in 2021 and 2019 and the 2021 Junior Drivers Premiership, reining seventy-six winners, seventeen clear of John Morrison.

Her biggest winner has been Willie Go West (Auckland Reactor) which won the Listed PGG Wrightson Standardbred Harness 7000 at Addington as a three-year-old.

She’s also driven the winner of the Darren DeFilippi Memorial twice, a race all junior drivers aspire to take out, Fighting Fire (2021) and The Bloss (2022).

She drove three winners in a day at Addington in July 2021 and in March this year at Manawatu.

Sarah would love to win her local Cup at Methven. It’s a race her father won in 2009 driving Corka Dream while her uncle Patrick has driven the Cup winner twice – Tact Halsey in 1998 and Bardolino in 1990.

Later this year Sarah is heading to the Oceanian Junior Drivers Championship which coincide with this year’s Interdominions.

Sarah says her father has been her main mentor and in recent years Sam Ottley has been supportive and provided feedback on her driving.

Her biggest supporters have been Michael House providing thirty four winners, the Dalgety Stable twenty six and her father fourteen.

Her long-term sponsor is Westview Racing who have been with her since her days driving Kidz Kartz.

by Bruce Stewart, for Harnesslink