The four-and-a-half hour trek from the Riverina to Tabcorp Park Melton is a well-worn path for the Johnson family, but rarely has the trip been as satisfying as in the past 12 months.

They head south again today in pursuit of more silverware, hopeful their filly Maajida can land a third Group 1 in the $150,000 Pryde’s EasiFeed Victoria Oaks.

Steven Johnson, who shares breeding and owning honours at Atworthy Park with brothers Gary and Ian and dad Leslie, said the three-year-old had made a remarkable impact.

“I put photos of Maajida in the back room and every day I pay my respects and thank her for changing our lives,” he said. “She’s very special, a superstar race horse.”

Her success has brought immeasurable joy to the Johnson family, whose love of the trots sparked from parents Les and Rhonda Johnson, “mixed farmers – sheep, cattle, crops – who always had a horse interest”.

They have bred for more than 50 years, including Inter Dominion champion Golden Reign, who fetched them $8000 at a 1991 sale and would go on to win almost $1.2 million for his new owners.

By contrast Maajida, who has amassed almost $285,480 in only nine starts, is uniquely theirs.

In 2018 she was among four horses they took to Melbourne sales but was passed in short of her $25,000 price tag, and subsequently she returned in their float to the Riverina.

“We brought her home, broke her in and put her in the paddock until November (2018), and then she did what she did.”

Maajida joined trainer Emma Stewart’s team near Ballarat and placed second on debut in a Vicbred Platinum Home Grown Classic heat, prompting Johnson to think “she goes all right”, before one week later returning to win the Group 2 final by a half-neck.

“After her second race we thought, hang on, she might be something special.”

She was. Saved for Victoria’s premier aged racing Group 1s, the Vicbred Super Series and Breeders Crown, she swept both to mark herself as Australia’s two-year-old filly of the year.

“Every year we go to the Breeders Crown just to watch and spectate, because that’s the pinnacle,” Johnson said. “To be there on that day in the (winners’) carriage, which we’ve watched for years, and for us to now be riding in it – we had finally made it.

“Our mail lady, Dianne, from up home, who was randomly there as well, come down from the stands to congratulate us and we said come with us. So she had a champagne, joined us in the carriage and was in the winning photo as well.”

A good drop of bubbly and carriage rides up victory lane might not be the Johnsons’ usual fare – “we are very humble people” – but it’s being savoured.

“There is no greater feeling than winning. We are passionate about harness racing and breeding and have watched for years and years other people enjoy winning, but when it is you out there it’s magnificent,” he said.

“We can’t believe it and we pinch ourselves. We have all got day jobs in Wagga. Every Sunday we go out to help Mum and Dad as much as we can on the farm and then have a beer and enjoy each other’s company.”

They will come together again tonight from 9.07pm to cheer Maajida, hopeful of adding another photo to the back room.

“She’s got white line fever, once she’s on the track you have got to beat her.”

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