Much-travelled 21-year-old harness racing reinsman Paul Diebert landed his first Gloucester Park winner when he guided talented four-year-old Nathans Courage to a smart all-the-way victory in a 2130m mobile event on Tuesday night.
Diebert, born in Leeton in the heart of the New South Wales Riverina district, grew up in the Victorian town of Bendigo and has worked in the harness racing industry in NSW, Victoria and Queensland.
He is a third generation harness racing performer who has been in Western Australia for seven weeks, working for Pinjarra trainer Michael Brennan.
Brennan met Diebert when he was working for leading trainer-driver Grant Dixon in Queensland a year or so ago and he offered him a job a year later.
On Tuesday night Diebert was having his second drive at Gloucester Park and his ninth in WA when he was successful with the Brennan-trained Nathans Courage.
Nathans Courage, favourite at 9/4 on, set a brisk pace and won in fine style from The Storm Chief, rating 1.57.8 over 2130m.
“He goes real good,” said Diebert. “But I’ve got to try to settle him a bit more. He’s still a bit revvy, but that’s the Courage Under Fire in him. In the bigger races it is all about settling him. It’s alright winning a C1 event doing things wrong.
But in the big ones you’ve got to do everything right. He was on the steel the whole race tonight and instead of running home in 27sec. he’s got home in 27.6sec. which isn’t too bad.”
Brennan, who completed a double when Gary Hall jun. drove 9/4 chance Rub Of The Green to victory in a 2503m stand, said that he was aiming Nathans Courage at the rich feature events for four-year-olds in the coming summer.
“Whether he measures up or not we’ll have to wait and see,” he said. “He was a bit underdone tonight and will improve.”
Ken Casellas