The Abela father-and-son harness racing team of Joe and Tyrone have been making every post a winner this year—and an enviable strike-rate tells the story.
“It’s a nice change that’s for sure. We couldn’t take a trick in 2020 – nothing went right for us!” Tyrone said.
“One of our very nice horses in Carmy Dan had us scratching our heads. I think he had four zeros and a rating of only 50 at one stage. At his peak he was in the high 60s and nearly going to Melbourne to race, but he had a real bad patch where he was dropping out at the bell,” he said.
“It was things like this that we were coming up against, but we’ve worked through them and come out the other side, thankfully!”
Tyrone said they had found Carmy Dan had stomach issues and the pacer has bounced back with a Melton second and wins at Cranbourne and Maryborough.
“His ‘Aunty’ in Misschanel wasn’t taking her promise at home to the races either,” Tyrone said.
“So we decided to get her in foal and away she went. She won three and we retired her after her last victory at Maryborough.
“We were hoping she could win enough to pay for a Rock N Roll Heaven service fee—she did more than that and covered the cost of two services to Sky Valley!”
The Abelas only have three or four horses in work at any one time, but over the past six or seven weeks have landed two doubles and with a bit of luck, it could have easily been three.
“The enjoyment is certainly back now,” Tyrone said.
The investment manager lives with his family at Ocean Grove, and his parents Joe and Carmen live on a picturesque 220-acre horse training property at Balliang, halfway between Bacchus Marsh and Geelong.
“We work as a team and we’ve done it like that for a long time,” Tyrone said.
“I drive over to my parents’ place to do them and Mum is very much hands-on with feeding and cleaning—she is probably dad’s right hand really. And we also have a helper in Cathrine who turns up every day to help us with fastwork and jogging.”
The Abelas have been in sensational form this year with an impressive win and place percentage to starters strike rate of 69 percent. So far, they’ve had 13 starters for five wins, three second placings and one third.
“We recently trained our 100th winner which was a nice milestone because we’re only a hobby outfit and pretty much just breed all of our own,” Tyrone said.
“It’s usually about 50/50 in trotter and pacer numbers, although we do have more trotting broodmares in foal at the moment. I suppose deep down we all have a real love for the trotters.
“Probably our best horse over the years was a square gaiter named Solar Active, who we raced for about four years. In his last year he ran third in an Inter-Dominion heat in Melbourne and then sixth in the final to Sundons Gift, which was a huge thrill.
“Then as an 11-year-old he won his last start at Kilmore, driven by the late Gavin Lang.”
Harness Racing Authority records show that Solar Active (Sundon-All Action Gal (Speed In Action) won 23 races and had 22 placings for over $180,000 in stakemoney.
The family is now pinning its hopes on a smart trotter in Madena Sky (Angus Hall-Dreamscape Aurora (Safely Kept) to keep the success going.
“We’ve had some nice types over the years, but she has the ability to potentially be our best,” Tyrone said.
Madena Sky ran second to Fear The Yankee at Bendigo on Wednesday night in the second heat of the Lyn McPherson Memorial Breed for Speed Silver Series. She now has six wins and seven placings from 39 starts.
Tyrone said his father got involved in the sport in the late 1970s, “poking around with just one horse for ages.”
“When I started driving in 1993 as a junior, it stepped up to three or four horses. We later put in a 1500m jog track, a 1150m fastwork track along with swimming facilities,” he said.
“I drove about 60 winners, but I only occasionally take the reins now, and I don’t miss it. Chris Alford, who knows our horses, has been really good to us and we also use Jodi Quinlan and Greg Sugars.”
As a youngster, Tyrone worked for Danny Norris, Gavin Lang and John Justice, while during his early driving days competed against Kerryn Manning and her now husband Grant Campbell.
“They were great times, and I was lucky to get such a good grounding. I will always cherish my time with Gavin. It was an experience being with him and I was lucky to work some of his best horses,” he said.
Terry Gange
NewsAlert PR Mildura