It was a night of milestones at Melton on Saturday as drivers Shannon O'Sullivan and Mark Pitt and trainer Emma Stewart clocked up significant victories at Victorian harness racing headquarters.
O'Sullivan scored her first metropolitan race success when Love Ina Chevy zipped home down the outside to win the PCFA Critical Catch Pace for trainer Lance Justice, while Pitt and Stewart both brought up their 100th winners for the 2022 season.
For O'Sullivan, the long-awaited victory was reward for plenty of hard work in recent times.
“All the hard work pays off and at the moment I'm just trying to take the opportunities that I get and make the most of them,” she said.
“Really grateful to Lance for giving me the drive and hopefully it just snowball effects into a few more drives on Saturday nights.”
Pitt scored a treble at Tabcorp Park with Von Art and Like A Wildfire winning for Stewart and Delightful Angel claiming the Group 3 VHRC Caduceus Metropolitan Pace Final for NSW horseman David Kennedy.
The win by Von Art continued a staggering run of form for Stewart's new acquisition, who is unbeaten from six starts with the stable.
With plenty of early speed in the Catanach’s Jewellers Pace, the five-year-old mare sat back in the field and came with a barnstorming finish to win by 9.5m in a mile rate of 1:55:3min.
She rounded up a talented field of rivals including place-getters The Pantheist and Enchanted Stride, who are both trained by David Miles.
“It was pretty impressive tonight,” Pitt said.
“The race was probably set up for a swooper like that with a strong lead time and first quarter. It suited us down to the ground.
“This mare, she has gone forward in leaps and bounds from racing in the country to racing in some of the mares’ races and dominating.”
The daughter of Art Major had three winless runs for Aaron Bain in March after being purchased from New Zealand, where she had 61 starts for just six victories.
Michael Stanley trained a double at Melton, with Rock N Roll Doo and Soho Seraphine winning the final two races on the card.
Anthony Butt piloted Soho Seraphine to victory and also claimed the opening event of the night with Belmont Royale for Geoff Webster.