Talented harness racing trainer Matthew Dwyer spent a number of years in the harness racing wilderness but the lure of a good horse has seen him make an overdue return to racing in Tasmania.
At the Elwick Racing Centre in Hobart on Sunday night two of his three stable tenants produced bold efforts with Queens Advocate scoring an impressive win in a C7 or better event over 2579 metres and The Majority was game when fifth in the feature race the Hobart Pacing Cup over a grueling 3060 metres.
It was a gem of a drive from Gareth Rattray who settled Queens Advocate ($2.80) near last before latching onto the back of the well-backed Queens Advocate ($3 into $2.40 fav) and when they reached the home turn Rattray eased his mare four-wide to challenge and she ran home powerfully to score from Jetcraft and Jaccka Len.
Queens Advocate was a well-performed mare when in the care of top trainer Juanita McKenzie before being moved on after the mare had suffered an injury that kept her out of racing for a year.
Dwyer's wife Lauren leased the mare from owner Georgie Johnson (Lauren's cousin) and provided the mare stays sound the Dwyers should look forward to more success in the coming months.
"I am very pleased with how Queens Advocate has come on this time in and I thought on her previous run at Carrick that she'd be very hard to beat.
"The mare had a quarter crack injury at the end of her time with Juanita (McKenzie) and when Lauren (Johnson) said she was thinking about what to do with the mare we decided to try her out and she's going super."
The Majority led in the Hobart Pacing Cup after stepping straight to the front from the standing start and after being taken on twice in the run the Art Major gelding battled on tenaciously over the final 300 metres to be just edged out of fourth place.
"At first I was a shade disappointed with The Majority's effort but when I watched the replay of the race a couple of times I realised he did a pretty good job so we'll progress now to the Devonport Cup and if he happened to lead and put in a similar effort he'd be hard to beat."
Dwyer only has a stable of three with his otter tenant an unraced two-year-old.
Peter Staples