It’s all smiles as Abby lives out her harness racing dream

Abby Sanderson armed herself with a rake from the time she could walk.

As a toddler Sanderson realised a rake and a willingness to muck out boxes was a surefire pathway to the horses at her father’s harness racing stables in Gatton.

“I walked around with a rake as long as I can remember and then I would stand on a bucket to reach up and put the bridle on a horse,” Sanderson said.

While she is mid-way through completing Year 12, Sanderson is under no illusion that an academic career beckons beyond this year.

“I was never going to do anything else,” she said.

When Sanderson’s father Shane resigned himself that Abby and her older brother Ryan would follow him into the sport, he relocated from Menangle to the new training centre at Charlton last year.

“Dad realised that there are so many more opportunities for junior drivers down here in Victoria,” she said.

“And he was bang on the money with the number of drives that Ryan and I have been able to get since we moved down.”

Sanderson, who has 17 wins beside her name, recalls her fledgling career taking a turn for the better after a meeting with Glenn Douglas at the Bendigo trials.

“I was having a bad night at the trials driving slow horses and Glenn noticed and offered me the drive on Van Niekerk, which won the trial,” she said.

“So I kept going back to the trials and after a while he offered me a drive in a race.”

It’s no coincidence the Douglas camp has provided the 17-year-old Sanderson with her three metropolitan winners, Mighty Flying Art (Shepparton), Ozzie Playboy (Cranbourne) and Carload (Kilmore).

“Glenn has been a great support and is always offering me advice on driving,” she said.

Sanderson has watched her peers closely as she hones her skills in the sulky.

“When we were in Sydney I looked up to Cameron Hart and Amanda Turnbull and down here Ellen Tormey,” she said.

Sanderson will be hoping to add to her metropolitan tally when she partners three Julie Douglas-trained runners at Bendigo on Saturday night.

She rates the pole marker Would You Mind in the Vale Stan Rutland Pace as her best winning chance.

“He should get a good trip from the draw and will get his chance in the straight,” she said.

“Ozzie Playboy has drawn wide but he is a very consistent horse.”