Racing Victoria's Off The Track Programme manager, Cara Kavanagh presents Shane with the Best Performed Thoroughbred rug and garland
Racing Victoria’s Off the Track programme for retired racehorses was in the limelight recently with some high profile winners taking the Best Performed Thoroughbred prizes at the Melbourne International Horse Trials
Shane Rose was emotional about his win on the seven year old ex-racehorse Shanghai Joe, who he bred and pre-trained at Bimbadeen Park before the ‘embarrassingly slow’ racehorse came back to him after his short lived racing career
Sonja Johnson’s CCI3* runner-up Parkiarrup Illicit Liaison (above), who raced in Western Australia as Bullionaire, didn’t win the rug that weekend but is one of the few horses currently listed on the Equestrian Australia Normandy 2014 World Equestrian Games squad and may well be representing his country in the near future
Victorian rider Will Enzinger rode the former Lindsay Park gelding Wenlock Aquifer (Aquifer) - pictured above - to finish runner-up in the CCI2* and collect the ‘Best Performed Off the Track Thoroughbred’ award while Nina Clarke’s LP Boudin (below), a former VRC St Leger runner-up who was raced by Fran Houlahan and Brian Johnston as Mr Bigalow, was awarded ‘Best Performed Off the Track Thoroughbred’ in the CCI1*.
But it isn’t just the big names in eventing who enjoy success on retired racehorses. In May we talked to Georgina Birrell whose ex-racehorse Regent’s Point won the Grade 1 class and the Best Performed Off the Track horse at the Horse Riding Clubs Association of Victoria (HRCAV) Top Teams Trophy Horse Trials at Yarrambat.
Georgina, who has ridden to 2* level, found the very laid back Regent’s Point online and admits that she has only ever ridden thoroughbreds as “it is all I’ve ever been able to afford” but she wouldn’t change a thing about this boy!
Georgina Birrell
