Leading Tasmanian harness racing trainer Ben Yole is often in the winner’s circle, he has trained 122 winners in Tasmania alone, but on Sunday he crossed codes to notch up a winning treble.
Yole owns six-year-old gelding Irish Shotgun who won at Sunday’s Devonport gallops meeting before training a double on the Hobart harness card later in the evening.
Irish Shotgun scored in the Goodstone Group Maiden/Class 1 by the narrowest of margins over 1880 metres.
The gelding is trained by Chester Roach who resides next door to Yole’s training establishment at Sidmouth in the states north.
“Chester (Roach) is my next-door neighbour, and he works his gallopers at my place, and I was having a chat with him and decided to go into a horse with him,” explained Yole.
One of Yole’s junior drivers, Sam Clotworthy, also gives Roach help with his team as he has worked with many leading thoroughbred trainers including Gai Waterhouse, Anthony Cummings and Clinton McDonald.
“Sam (Clotworthy) helps Chester with the gallops a bit too, he has a galloping background, which triggered my interest a bit,” explained Yole.
Yole, who owns a couple of gallopers, is happy just to race a few as a hobby and currently has no intentions of training them.
Yole then prepared a double on the Hobart harness card.
His first win came in the way of Bettors Delight mare Indiana Dreaming who was well driven by Ricky Duggan who drove three winners on the card, including his 50th win of the season.
From barrier five Duggan tried to lead on the mare, but when unsuccessful he was able to sit behind the leader before out sprinting his rivals late to score by 1.2 metres over the well-supported favourite Feel the Burn in 1m 59.4s.
“When you put the best on you expect them to perform for you, and he certainly lifted her out of the gate to get behind the leader and got the sprint lane late to win for some great owners,” said Yole.
“She is owned by Zanni Hayes whose husband Wayne is a truck driver for us and it was a big thrill for them to be on track for their first win,” added the winning trainer.
The last leg of Yole’s Sunday treble came in the way of Coveffe Hustler who scored in a rating 30 to 50 event.
“She just dropped back to that under 50 rating, and when they do that it is a big class drop,” said Yole who was full of praise for the drive from Gareth Rattray.
“Gareth (Rattray) didn’t use her up out of the mobile last night, and he drove her a treat,” explained Yole about the win of the four-year-old mare who he also owns, and he expects her to be competitive in lower-rated races.
“It is her class, she has won $30,000 now for us for a mare that I purchased relatively cheap, so I wish I had a stable full of them,” he said.
Longford trainer-driver Todd Rattray landed a treble on the Hobart card.
Mozasu registered back to back wins, and after doing plenty of work in a fast lead time the three-year-old gelded son of Bettors Delight still had plenty of speed late to score by 9.6 metres.
After being placed in four of her last five outings, four-year-old mare Joogle was able to bounce back into the winner’s list, scoring by 3.4 metres after racing outside the leader to score.
The last leg of Rattray’s treble came in the final race of the night with Hillbilly Band who settled behind the leader before outsprinting his rivals in the home straight.
The Bettors Delight gelding was the sales topper at $24,000 at last year’s Carrick Park Yearling sale and is the third horse out of the 11 lots that went through the ring to have won a race in their first season of racing.
Duncan Dornauf for Tasracing