Some of Victoria’s finest reinsmen and women will converge on Horsham next Monday (October 5) for a harness racing tradition stretching back more than three decades.
The Noel Smith Memorial Horsham Invitational Drivers Championship returns for its 35th edition, bringing together 10 leading Victorian drivers for a six-heat battle at the Horsham track.
And while the national spotlight will be on Globe Derby Park just two days earlier for the Australian Drivers Championship, Horsham’s time-honoured event has assembled an impressive line-up of its own.
Reigning Champion Jordan Leedham will return to defend his title alongside James Herbertson, Kate Gath, Jason Lee, Chris Alford, Ryan Sanderson, Ellen Tormey, Taylor Youl, Jackie Barker and Michael Bellman.
Herbertson faces a particularly busy few days, with the star reinsman heading to South Australia to represent Victoria on Saturday night before heading to Horsham Monday.
The Horsham Invitational has built an extraordinary honour roll since Gaita Pullicino won the inaugural series in 1990.
The late Gavin Lang and Daryl Douglas top the board with four victories apiece, while Alford has three titles to his name and the opportunity to join them on Monday afternoon.
Among this year’s list of invitees, Gath, Lee, Tormey, Herbertson and Leedham have also previously taken out the championship.
The series has attracted some of Australasia’s biggest names during its history, including champion New Zealand reinsman Dexter Dunn, who won back-to-back editions in 2012 and 2013.
Tasmanian Ricky Duggan’s victory in 2016 demonstrated the reach of the event, with that year’s field including representatives from across Australia and New Zealand.
The championship honours the late Noel Smith, a long-serving Horsham and District Harness Racing Club committee member, past president and delegate who made an enormous contribution to harness racing locally and across Victoria. Smith was awarded a Harness Racing Victoria Distinguished Service Medal in March 1994 just three months before he passed away.
The invitational has endured as one of the Horsham club’s signature events, with only two interruptions across its history – the Equine Influenza period and COVID.
Long-time sponsor Carbine Chemicals has supported the championship since its inception, initially with the late Ray “Rocky” Baker and today with his son Jensen, maintaining an association stretching back to that first night at the Horsham Showgrounds in 1990.
This year’s meeting will feature six ratings-exempt championship events, along with four support races, providing a bumper program for the club’s feature day. Nominations for the program close with HRV at 12noon on Wednesday, September 30.
