Ararat trainer Terry Young isn’t expecting his trotter, Deltasun, to upstage Tornado Valley in Saturday night’s Group 1 Ascend Trophies The Knight Pistol but the classy five-year-old has surprised him before.

Young said he expected a strong showing from the Tennotrump gelding but “couldn’t see anything beating” Andy Gath’s in-form reigning TAB Inter Dominion champ at Tabcorp Melton Park.

“He trialed really well against the pacers at Maryborough on Sunday; he’ll be thereabouts,” Young said.

“He should run a nice rice; he has to step up now he is in open class now, these are the horses you are going to meet all the time, but I would be quite happy to run second.

“I am just excited to have a runner in a group race.”

On paper The Knight Pistol looks to be Tornado Valley’s for the taking. But harness racing can often throw a curveball, with Deltasun a prime example.

“His mother (Deltasu), she was no good as a racehorse,” Young explains. “She had just one start at Mt Gambier and (then) just wandered around in the paddock for about four years.

 “I don’t know why, but the family decided to get her in foal. And then you get something like him, so you don’t know where they are coming from. He has been a dream, you know.”

Young has been in the racing game for 64 years. He grew up in Orford – a small town with just “a pub and a school” about 27km north of Port Fairy in Victoria’s southwest – before moving to Caulfield as an apprentice jockey.

But the trots beckoned when his career in the saddle was cut short by weight.

“I didn’t ride long as I got too heavy and there was no way I was going over those jumps,” he said.

“I got into harness racing through the wife (Carol) – her father (Nick King) had horses (Argus, Colossal Jim, Shalambar) and they weren’t bad.

“I started driving a bit of track work at times for him, one thing led to another and it sort of went from there.”

Young has since geared up horses in 809 races, boasting 113 career wins and 217 places, many of them courtesy of talented pacer Justbritell, who ran fourth in the 2015 VHRSC Victoria Derby – “a big thrill” – and won The Shakamaker Classic in 2014.

“We have had a fair few of them that have won around $40,000 but we have had a hell of a lot that haven’t won $5000,” he said.

Then along came Deltasun – a dual Group 1 winner who has won 16 races from 37 starts and more than $200,000.

 “We have looked after him but (driver) Gavin (Lang) has been really good; he has taught him how to be a racehorse,” Young said.

 “I keep saying to my wife if he never wins another race we will never get another one as good as him.”

Young said he had been looking forward to Deltasun providing him with his first Inter Dominion runner at Melton but fate intervened just before the December heats.

 “He didn’t have a twisted bowel, (but) it just went over his spleen,” he said.

“The Ballarat vet had him down there but didn’t have to operate (as the bowel) came back over where it should’ve.

“(But) I was looking forward to having him run in the heats just to have a runner.”

And with the Inter Dominion moving to Auckland later this year, Young says his ID dream may have to wait until 2020.

“It wouldn’t matter if I had Andy’s horse, New Zealand would still be too far away for me,” he said with a laugh.

“We’re both retired now and the daughter-in-law, they are sort of her horses, she just wants to keep breeding and must think we are going to live forever.

“I am going on 77 in July. It gets us out of bed, that’s one good thing.”

Young said he had four horses in work, a feat made possible with the help of Carol.

“The wife, she does as much as I do with them,” he said.

“She has had horses since she was in pony club as about a six-year-old, I think and has been really good.

“If she hadn’t have done as much as she has done I wouldn’t be able to have four.”

And then there’s the help and advice of a more than handy harness racing household down the road – Peter Manning and his family.

“Peter has been an enormous help to us; we go out there every day,” he said.

“I have a little two-year-old here (Premonition) who ran third at Swan Hill – I think he is going to make it – we had a bit of trouble with him early on, Peter said hop on these hopples and do this and do that.

“It is good to get advice from someone like Peter. I read somewhere that he had 25,000 starters so he must know something.

“They are terrific, the whole family is like that. The Mannings, geez, you’d go a long way to find a better lot.”

 

Photos by Stuart McCormick