It was a night of firsts at Bendigo on Tuesday as Celeste Towers and Wes Shellie both recorded maiden wins in the sulky.
Towers’ first winning drive came at just her second start in a race and with a horse prepared by her boss Andy Gath, while Shellie trained and drove a double in a meeting to remember for the 30-year-old hobby horseman.
The 20-year-old Towers teamed up with Night Spirit, who led from start to finish to take out the Schweppes Pace by more than 6m on the line.
There would have been some nervous moments for Towers, who copped pressure from Millah Joy in the lead, but she retained the front and Night Spirit dug deep to score the seventh win of his career.
“I’ve driven him in a couple of trials and one of them I won by 20m doing the same thing, just leading and trying to be soft on him,” she said.
“I’m pretty close with him and he’s a little trier and goes good for me. I got lucky with the drive there.”
Towers, from Bungaree near Ballarat, has a rich family history in harness racing, with both her mother Angela and father Jeffrey heavily involved in the sport.
She said it was a special feeling to record her first triumph as a driver.
“I didn’t want to get cocky and let him go too early or anything like that. I thought I’d just hang on, make sure I could hold everything out and then outsprint them,” she said.
“It was a pretty thrilling feeling. I haven’t felt like that before. There was a lot of adrenaline going on and I probably didn’t even need to pull the whip on him – just whistle at him – but I got excited.
“And it was good to be able to do that for Andy and Kate (Gath) because they’ve done so much for me and taught me so much.”
Earlier in the night, Shellie won the Manburley Farm 2yo Maiden Trot with Hey Karla and then the Aldebaran Park Vicbred Platinum Maiden Trot with Fugle.
Shellie, 30, works the horses in Kyabram on a part-time basis with his father Peter and had nine previous drives without success before Tuesday night’s double.
“I got told a few times before I had my first race drive that driving in a race is nothing like the trials. And it only takes one race to work that out,” he said.
“It was very exciting. We had to hold off on the celebrations. I had to take (Fugle) out for a warm-up straight out afterwards and there was a bit of action there for a bit.
“On the way home, we could enjoy it a bit more I suppose.”
