The Tip Top Grandpa story encapsulates so much we love about this great game, harness racing.
The 10-year-old trotter today won his third race, taking out the Niota Bloodstock Trot at Tabcorp Park Melton.
While 10-year-olds winning races in the trots is not a rarity, this fella didn’t debut until he turned 10 last September.
Trained, bred and owned by veteran horseman Charlie Farrugia, 80, Tip Top Grandpa has been a revelation since the team decided to give him another shot at making the track.
Previously they had tried at him as a much younger horse, at age 3 and 4, but it wasn't to be. Until it was.
Winning driver Darren Zahra explained on Trots Vision that Tip Top Grandpa had just been living life on the property and enjoying himself as one of Farrugia’s several pet horses.
“They’re all his pets,” Zahra told hosts Dan Mielicki and Rob Auber today.
“If you told him he had a slow one he wouldn’t believe you. They’re all good horses to him.”
Such love for the standardbred is also not a rarity in the game, but to be reminded of it again in such a way as today’s win at Tabcorp Park Melton is something to capture.
Tip Top Grandpa is out of a mare by Tip Top Prince who never raced, and Grandpa is her first and only foal.
Hear more from Zahra post-race below.