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Today may well deliver James Herbertson a significant breakthrough that’ll be reward for toil, kilometres and loyalty.
The gun young reinsman is on the cusp of breaking through for his 250th win of the season, a feat achieved only by Chris Alford and Greg Sugars in the past decade.
“I’d be over the moon,” Herbertson said of the milestone. “To sit on that sort of number, it’s late in the year but it’s been a long year, to be able to get there (would be) great.
“There are very few drivers around Australia who have got the opportunity to get those sorts of numbers and lucky enough I am one of those.”
A pair of victories at Geelong on Boxing Day, first with Asmileandawinx and then with Harley Blue, boosted Herbertson to 249 wins from 1646 starts for the season, putting him on the cusp of the 250 milestone, which hasn’t been achieved since Alford and Sugars both eclipsed that number in the extended 2019-20 season.
He has four chances to break the milestone at Stawell today, beginning with Michael Gadsden’s Fragmental in the second race at 2.43pm. He’ll also steer Im Lady Rhonda for trainer Ross Fiscalini in the day’s feature, The Maori Legend.
Herbertson’s success also has him about to secure his second straight Garrards State Drivers Premiership, sitting well clear of second-placed Alford, who has 178 wins this season.
“At the end of the day it’s just a numbers game for me really, I try and go around as much as I possibly can and pick up a few winners along the way,” Herbertson told TrotsVision.
“I’m very lucky with the supporter base I’ve got, I’ve got a lot of small trainers behind me, very few big trainers, which makes it a little bit difficult sometimes – you lack a little bit of horsepower. But at the end of the day the people I drive for are very loyal and they look after me in the long run.”
The winning may well continue all the way to the end of the year for Herbertson, who’s among the 10 drivers who’ll contest the Garrards Horse and Hound Young Guns Series at Melton on New Year’s Eve.
“It will be great,” Herbertson said. “There are a great group of young people, they are all good friends of mine and to just be racing against them it’s going to be interesting.
“It will be great, the racing will be very exciting, I don’t think it will be dull. To put the spotlight of new year’s on the young ones like Dec Murph and a few of the young girls who are coming through and doing a really good job, it’s a great time for them to be taken more notice of and hopefully it creates a few opportunities for them going forward.”
