Chris Lang is parking his retirement, thanks to his latest young trotting star Verbici.
One of Victoria’s most decorated horsemen, already a Caduceus Club Living Legend, the 66-year-old Lang admitted to having thoughts of taking a back seat to partner and co-trainer Sonia Mahar.
“At my age, well you start to think about retirement,” he said. “I might have to put that off a bit with the stable we’ve got at the moment.”
Buzz two-year-old trotter Verbici, who is unbeaten in six starts, and four-year-old mare I Am Wilma are the stable pin-up horses.
Both will be favourites to win their respective Vicbred finals.
But Lang admits the pair haven’t been the easiest horses to train.
“I Am Wilma still isn’t,” he said. “With Verbici, I’d never have thought he’d be doing this when we started working with him.
“It’s easy to look and think he must have been a natural to be winning like this at two, but he could hardly trot early.
“It’s really just this time up, since he came back from winning at Menangle a few months ago and had a break that we’ve started to think he’s a really good horse.”
And Lang knows what a good horse, especially a good trotter, feels like.
The first real top-liner he had was just over 30 years ago when National Interest emerged, first as a bridesmaid for the then almost unbeaten Noopy Kiosk, and then into a star in his own right.
There was better to follow, headed by the dual Inter Dominion winner Sundons Gift, who even took Lang to Sweden to tackle what many say is the world’s greatest trotting race, Elitloppet, in 2009.
Although the Swedes didn’t see the best of him, the trip was a “win” because Sundons Gift returned home better for it and was almost unstoppable on his way to that second Inter Dominion crown and a string of other features.
Let Me Thru, Skyvalley, Kyvalley Road and Jauriol are just some of the trotting powerhouses Lang trained before he was diagnosed with Raynaud’s disease in 2014, which took him out of the game for several years.
Since he’s returned and teamed with Mahar at Riddells Creek, Ollivici, I Am Wilma and now Verbici have been their headline acts.
When you train as many stars as Lang, comparisons are the obvious questions.
So, how does Verbici rate with the best young trotters Lang has trained?
“Put it this way, not many of them could have done what he did and showed the speed he did from so far off the leader to win two starts back,” he said.
As former high profile harness bookmaker and media personality Bill Hutchison said after watching Verbici win recently: “Gee, he just keeps finding those top trotters, doesn’t Chris?”
He sure does and long may it continue.
