Trots Centre: Cole plays it straight at new stable

Two first starters at Ararat tonight is perhaps the first sign of a lot of firsts to come for trainer Mick Cole, who’s in the throes of a considerable stable expansion.

The Bannockburn trainer-driver will debut Jasperine in the Ararat Pony Club 3YO Maiden Pace and Rocknroll Upton in the Pinky Point 2YO Pace, optimistic both will give a good show but also improve with racing.

And they’ll soon be given every opportunity to flourish, with Cole moving stables at year’s end to greatly ramp up his training along with partner Laura Burnside (pictured with Rocknroll Upton) and stable manager Paul Warnock.

“I am pretty excited about the next few years really,” Cole said, having recently purchased a new property to allow him to greatly upgrade his stables.

“When I was kid growing up I was involved in harness racing. It was something I always wanted to get into later on in life as I slowed down with work.”

Along with Burnside, his “partner of 11 years”, he did just that, establishing at Bannockburn and since 2014-15 training 269 starters for 28 wins, aided also by Warnock, who Cole said had been a “Godsend” and had a great “passion for harness racing”.

“After five or six years in the industry (Laura and I) settled on this is what we want to do for the rest of our lives,” he said.

“We are setting up a new training facility, which is five minutes up the road and we hope to be moving into that at Christmas time.

“Over the next couple of years I want to expand the training business and the new property will give us the capacity to train 20-odd horses.”

With their existing property recently sold, Cole plans to soon permanently relocate to the new stables at what was formerly Pinaroo Park’s breeding complex.

In addition to the existing stabling they’ve built an 1100-metre fast track and most notably an 800-metre straight track, a crucial item on Cole’s wish list that was spawned after he spent a working holiday at Mark Purdon’s stables to “learn from the best”.

“He was amazing,” Cole said. “He had a straight track and he showed us how to work on it. You can get the work into the horses without putting the stress into their legs and with the young horses you can teach them to stay in gait in the straight line.”

Further time with the likes of Kerryn Manning, Geoff Webster and Anton Golino has also proven beneficial, learnings that Cole is ready to put into practice on a grand scale.

It’s an uptick in activity that kicks off tonight.

“I’d only had one or two horses racing recently, but seven have been at trials the last few weeks and five are racing this week, so it’s nice to be back at the track.”

Cole’s first Ararat debutant is Jasperine, a three-year-old Artistic Fella filly out of Tiny Treasure for late owner-breeder Phillip Nott. Jasperine joined Cole’s team via trainer Tim Bolitho.

“Tim had a fair few in work and asked me to get her ready to trial, which I did and so he said to keep and race her,” Cole said.

“She is a really fast horse, she just has some manner problems that let her down a bit and she can get hot-headed in her runs. I just need to keep calm and the more experience she has racing the better she will get.”

That education kicks off in race one tonight, which streams on Trots Vision at 6pm.

“I wasn’t disappointed to see her off the second row. Hopefully she will settle down. We won’t be bustling her until there is a gap in the final straight,” Cole said.

“If she’s holding it all together we’ll let her use her speed. It just depends on how she works on the day.”

It will be a somewhat similar scenario for Rocknroll Upton, who has drawn inside the back row and will likely also be following others through with a quiet run before making his charge late.

By A Rocknroll Dance out of Upton, the two-year-old gelding was sold by Rickie Alchin to Cole, who had previously snapped up and raced her sister, four-time winner Upton Girl.

“She took a bit of time to come on but she raced really well until she had a stress fracture in her shoulder and had to be sent to the paddock,” Cole said.

“I expect he will go better as he develops. He has shown already that he will probably be a better horse than his sister is.

“He’s had two trials trials and sharpened up since his trial. He’s no superstar, but will be a good honest horse.”

He debuts tonight behind gate one horse Danceforme for trainer Leroy O’Brien and reinsman Neil McCallum, and Cole is hopeful they will hold the front and give him an armchair ride into the race.

“I think he should be thereabouts if he does everything right,” he said. “I don’t know if he can win it. He will need the one to lead and if he sits on his back he’ll be thereabouts.”

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