The commanding win of four-year-old squaregaiter The Knockabout in the Vicbred Voucher race at Stawell recently provided a timely boost for the popular south-western Victorian-based O’Connor family.
“We breed five or six foals a year, so we’ll put the voucher towards service fees. We rely on the Vicbred bonuses to help keep sending our mares to the stallions,” breeder and part-owner Anthony O’Connor said.
The Knockabout is one of 24 horses to earn their owners a $5,000 bonus for breeding or buying Vicbred stock through Harness Racing Victoria’s new $2.75 million Vicbred Vouchers program.
“I think it’s good to encourage people to keep breeding,” Anthony said.
The O’Connor’s have been associated with the sport for 80 years.
“Our family’s involvement with harness racing began in 1945 when my grandfather Jack Heffernan, who lived at Dalvui Lane in Terang, bought a mare in foal,” Anthony said.
Nowadays the family combines training a team of pacers and trotters with milking 250 dairy cows on their 550-acre property at Scotts Creek, near Camperdown.
“I train three horses, my son Nicholas trains three and my other son Xavier, who trains The Knockabout, also has three,” Anthony said.
The Knockabout story actually began 15 years ago.
“In 2010 my brother Peter and I went down and bought a horse at the sales but it didn’t turn out any good and we went back the next year and we bought the mother of The Knockabout named Peter’s Passion,” he said.
“Peter’s Passion goes back to the NZ Trotter of the Year Special Pride whose half-sister was the dam of Village Kid.”
Peter’s Passion produced three foals – all winners – before having to be put down owing to a knee injury three years ago.
Besides The Knockabout, she left the six-time winner Old Villa Boy and Wistful Lady, who has won twice.
“It was disappointing to lose her as we wanted to get a well-bred filly out of her,” Anthony said.
“We are breeding from 10 broodmares at the moment. We’ve always had pacing mares but a few years ago we bought some trotting stock as well.”
The O’Connor broodmare band includes the Melton Listed winner Heavenly Charm and her dam Sentimental Charm and half-sister Aboutagirl, Security Code (dam of Quiet Storm) and
her unraced Art Major daughter, and the trotters My Chimera, Aldebaran Kiri, Arabella Showdown, Calder Sun (dam of Promise Dream) and Virginiaconnection and her daughter Rum Junction.
HRV Vicbred Voucher races for the remainder of October are:
Pacers
October 8 Bendigo – mares up to NR50
October 9 Kilmore – 4YO+ maiden
October 10 Melton – 3YO maiden
October 17 Swan Hill – up to NR39
October 20 Terang – up to NR49
October 21 Mildura – maiden
October 21 Shepparton – 2YO maiden
October 22 Bendigo – mares up to NR50
October 27 Ararat – 4YO+ maiden
October 30 Ballarat – 3YO maiden
October 31 Maryborough – mares up to NR50
Trotters
October 13 Maryborough – up to NR42
October 16 Ballarat – 4YO+ maiden
October 22 Bendigo – NR30+ handicap
October 26 Maryborough 3YO maiden*
Poster Boy, who stands at Llowalong Farms, took the siring honours at Melton with a winning double with the three-year-olds Its Confidential and Silver Pistol. Both were bred by Anne and Bill Anderson’s Lauriston Bloodstock, who bred Poster Boy.
The Alabar Bloodstock stallion Ride High sired his third feature race winner from his first crop when Moonlight Moth scored a runaway success in the IRT Premiere Stakes at Melton. The colt was bred and is raced by Len and Irene Parker.
Shoreline Dream, the winner of the SA Sapling Stakes, was bred by well-known Goulburn Valley identities Garry Hawthorn and Jenny Gallagher, of Galthorn Farm.
The opinions expressed in The Forum are those of the author and may not be attributed to or represent policies of Harness Racing Victoria, which is the state authority and owner of thetrots.com.au.
