Former pacer Courageous Spirit is helping change perceptions of standardbreds with his school-aged retrainer and the support of the harness racing community.
Affectionately known as Taj, the winner of seven of his 56 starts has since found a home with Hamilton and Alexandra College student Olivia Biggs, who spoke with HRV HERO manager Tanya McDermott for the HERO podcast.
“He’s very quirky,” Olivia said. “Taj, he was a bit of a trouble maker and wasn’t everyone’s greatest fan, but he seemed to really connect with me and do whatever I asked him to.”
Taj was retrained by HERO registered retrainers Elle Moro, of Moro Equine, and Cobe Lodge, but Mrs McDermott said there was some difficulty finding the perfect home for him until OIivia came on to the scene.
With the assistance of Victoria Harness Racing Club, HRV HERO initiated a Youth Rider Cadetship scholarship, which it awarded to Olivia and enabled her to take Taj to school in Hamilton where she could work with him. Olivia is undertaking her Certificate II in Equine Studies, having previously completed her Certificate I Stablehand at Bendigo Harness Racing Training Centre.
“Since (the College) is a few hours away from home, (the farm) is almost your sense of home, you can just go down and if you are having a tough day or lots of homework you can just get away from it and see a horse,” Olivia said.
“As it was a new environment for him and lots of green grass we just had to take our time and get to know each other more. As it progressed he got used to everything and started working really well. We’ve taken him to a show and he behaved really well.”
On the podcast Mrs McDermott announces the Victorian Harness Racing Club has extended the scholarship for a further term to help Taj and Olivia to build on their partnership.
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