Master Victorian harness racing reinsman Chris Alford showed he’s still got the magic touch, driving five winners at Cranbourne last night – the 21st time in his career he’s produced such a haul.
It was fitting that the milestone came at Cranbourne, a track that has long been a happy hunting ground for Alford. Seven of his 21 five-win cards have come at the venue.
Alford first achieved the feat at Traralgon in 1989, and his most recent before last night was at Shepparton in October 2020. His career-best single-meeting tallies remain six wins at Kilmore (2018) and six wins at Cranbourne (2019) and he has produced Metropolitan five-win hauls at Melton twice.
Alford won his first race aboard Spring Vance at Wangaratta on October 2, 1984, and his 40-year career is extraordinary by any measure:
- Australia’s leading driver on 14 occasions.
- Top 10 finishes in the national premiership for 30 seasons.
- More than 30 years competing at the top level, including five consecutive national titles from 1995–2000 and again from 2015–2019.
- 138 Group 1 victories, and the record for most wins in a single season (456 in 2017/18).
- An incredible 456 wins in a season 2017/18.
Now 57, Alford remains a regular fixture in the national top 10 and continues to remind the industry why he is regarded as one of the finest reinsmen the sport has ever produced.
Last night Alford got the ball rolling on Inexorable in Race 1 for local trainer Charlie Wootton (Wootton’s first win for the 2025 season). He followed up with Illawong Danny for Luke Tabone in Race 4; Sunlight Sass for his wife Alison in Race 6; Miss Addi for Deb and Gary Quinlan in Race 7; and rounded things off with The Preacher, for Jayne Davies in the final race.
As impressive as Alford’s 21 five-or-more winners is, it’s not the most for any Australian driver. That honor is still held by ace WA reinsman Gary Hall Jnr, who has performed the feat 34 times – all but one at Metro level at Gloucester Park – most recently in July this year. (His only non-Metropolitan was at Pinjarra in 2014).
Alford has now driven 8297 wins in his career. The next highest is 6303 wins by the late great Gavin Lang, and, for context, the most wins by a jockey in Australia is Robert Thompson’s 4441.
Alford has won just about every big race in Australasia, many of them multiple times, including Inter Dominions aboard Golden Reign in Christchurch in 1995 and Lennytheshark in 2015 in Perth.
Photo: Alford’s fifth of five at Cranbourne last night was aboard The Preacher for Jayne Davies (Claire Weston photograph)
