A “grand” achievement by USA Team Tritton

It was a leap of faith for Aussie duo Shane and Lauren Tritton to up stumps to the USA in 2020 and test their harness racing skills at international level.

And while there are plenty of measures that demonstrate their extraordinary success (in less than two years they’ve ticked off 120 plus winners and last week reached over $2 million US in stakes) there are none more significant to the Tritton’s than booking their first Grand Circuit appointment next week.

Pacer Nandolo (Betterthancheddar – Midnight in Paris (Christian Cullen) has been a standout in the preludes of one of the biggest and most grueling of America’s Grand Circuit events, the MGM Borgata Series at Yonkers Raceway, and was super impressive among qualifiers for the $US549,000 final.

“With five rounds of qualifiers and only eight horses getting through, it’s pretty tough just to get there and we couldn’t be happier with the way he has done it,” Tritton said.

“This is basically the closest equivalent we have here to (Australasia’s) Interdominion – it’s five circuit races over five weeks.  Nandolo won two of his series round races and finished a nose second in the other two – that was good enough to give him the points to qualify for the final, so we’ve been able to use this last week to freshen him up,” he said.

“We’ve raced in a lot of big races back home, of course, but since we have been here, this is our first Grand Circuit event and it’s a privilege to be there.”

Before leaving Australia, ‘Team Tritton’ had 364 winners as an official training partnership from 2016 and a further 995 wins prior to that when horses were trained in Shane’s name.  Shane Tritton holds the record in NSW for the most wins in a season (222) and won three successive NSW Metropolitan trainers’ titles immediately before the couple left Australia.

Lauren Tritton is no less accomplished.  She blasted onto the Australian scene six years ago when she became the youngest driver in history to drive 500 winners in Australia.  She was the first female ever to win the NSW Metropolitan Driver’s Title and has more than 900 winners (including more than 100 Group races) to her name.

After their relocation, the Tritton’s set their sights on running a smaller stable, but focusing on elite level horses, particularly once established in the Northern Hemisphere.

Nandolo was purchased from New Zealand last year, for the stable’s major Team Tritton Inc ownership group.

“Last year we just let him progress through the ranks at Yonkers, we didn’t push him, although he did set a 1:50 flat time on the half-mile track, which was just point two outside the track record,” Tritton said.

“He had a really good year and earned a couple of hundred thousand although he only had 16 or 17 starts.  The horses he has met over the past five weeks are currently the best in the country and he has acquitted himself very well.

“We always planned for this year to be his year when he would tackle the Grand Circuit for the first time.

“He’s got a big mountain to climb next week, especially since his barrier draw (barrier 7) is not ideal, but he’s such a good horse and just so tough we expect these big races will improve him.”

Tritton said he was comfortable with how the development of the stable was progressing.

“We’re more than happy with how things have been going, particularly this year, it’s got off to a great start for us, and we’re hoping next Monday it will get even better!” he said.

“We’re pretty excited to have this guy, but we’re also very excited too about what’s ahead for us.

“People say to us ‘Nandolo must be your best horse’ and I say that ‘yes, he’s very good, and we’re pretty happy to have him’. But we’ve got a few others we hope will be stepping into that same class Grand Circuit racing this year, who we think are better than him.”

Tritton said he couldn’t be happier with ex Aussie pacer Muscle Factory, who was coming along nicely since arriving at the barn.  Tritton’s formerly trained the pacer in Australia, and the winner of 18 races will again be handled by Lauren Tritton at the races.

“He will go to qualifying at Yonkers on Friday, and that will be his first outing.  We’ve given him time to acclimatize, and he is really, really good. I’m very happy with how he’s come through, he feels like the old ‘Muscles’ and doing everything right,” Tritton said.

Another topliner to join the Tritton barn is former Kiwi Another Masterpiece.  A former top Kiwi juvenile and winner of 12 races Another Masterpiece has almost $NZ500,000 in the bank already.  Tritton expects he will be ready to qualify in two weeks.

by Terry Gange, for Harnesslink