Being on a harness racing club committee is usually all about the work – but at Mildura, in far northwest Victoria, it was all about the wins at the club’s most recent meeting.
Four committee members came up trumps as winning owners of four different horses at Friday’s races – following on from two victories and a number of placings at the club’s previous fixture.
“We thought we could possibly get three winners between us, but we did think all of us had a good winning chance on Friday,” said club CEO Michelle McGinty.
“I don’t think there’s been a better result from a committee perspective certainly in my time – we’ve been having a pretty good run. We’ve just got to keep it going!” she said.
It was McGinty herself who got the ball rolling. As well as her administrative duties, she is a passionate owner-trainer and took out the three-year-old pace with the consistent Rockets Mate (pictured with McGinty and her sons Chase and Cooper).
“’Enzo’ was bred in NSW by Matt Anderson who I met when he came to the Mildura Pacing Cup in 2019. Sadly, he passed away a few weeks later (at age 42) and his family contacted me later and asked if I would be interested in taking the horse on,” she said.
“We were looking for a horse to replace Charlie Knew, who we’d retired, and just like Charlie he’s such a character of a horse and more of a pet to be honest. He’d been racing so well (four placings leading up to Friday’s win) but everything just went right.”
The victory was also McGinty’s very first as a trainer.
Committee member David Merry continued the run with the Boris Devcic-trained Nationaldraft in race eight, followed by president Allan MacDonald, who owns and trains four-year-old Martha Lavinia (winner race 11).
The final piece of the committee member quartet was accounted for by Sharon Pettit, who celebrated two wins in-a-row with her consistent pacer Linxx for trainer Kate Attard.
“Linxx has sort of shocked us. I bought him from (Bendigo owner) Peter Cole and I was hoping he would be a nice consistent horse for Mildura, and if he could win a couple, I would be happy – he’s certainly surprised us all,” she said.
“He’s been consistent since we got him and sometimes you don’t have to change too much at all – you just need a change of luck. We’ve definitely got that at his past couple of runs.”
Sharon (pictured) is the wife of the late Adrian Pettit, a popular Victorian regional steward at Mildura and previously a trainer-driver, who passed away after a short illness in 2020.
“I’ve been involved with harness racing all my life – my grandfather was (Victorian trainer) Stan Bibby, so from about the age of four I went to the Melbourne Showgrounds trots,” Sharon said.
“Adrian and I were pretty lucky to race a horse called Jasmarilla (winner of 15 races including two- and three-year-old Sires features) and I was an original committee member of the Victorian Reinswomen’s association. I became the secretary after (former secretary) Dianne Davies went to Macau back in the early 1980s. Then Adrian and I moved to Adelaide, and we always had horses – Adrian was the trainer and I was the strapper.”
Sharon said her involvement took a backseat when her husband became a steward.
“But then when Adrian passed away and I retired from work last year, I was looking for something else to interest me, and I think you naturally go back to what you know, which for me is horses,” she said.
“I started on the committee and that’s an extremely busy job, and now I own or have shares in about a dozen horses – both pacers and gallopers.”
Suffice to say, though, that Linxx is a particular favorite, with Sharon able to be hands on at the Attard stables in Red Cliffs.
“Kate even managed to get me to drive Linxx in fast work a couple of weeks back and that’s the first time I’ve been in the cart for probably six years! I’m not sure if I’ll be a regular. I loved it, but I just enjoy being around the horses and doing what needs to be done to help out.”