Young teenage horsewoman Courtney Laker enjoyed a dream start to her career when she saluted with her first starter as a trainer after Curly James ran his rivals off their legs in the Centre State Printing Pace at Melton on Saturday night.
The 19-year-old Laker produced Curly James first up since April and the five-year-old didn’t let her down leading all the way and holding off Vanquish Stride and Triple Eight in a slick mile rate of 1:51.3 for the 1720 metre journey.
Curly James was previously trained by David Moran who partnered the son of A Rocknroll Dance to victory and Laker acknowledged Moran’s role in her securing a training licence.
“I worked with David and he has helped me a lot, he’s taught me so much since I’ve been working with him and now I’m 19 and wanted to get my trainers (licence) and he said that I could put Curly in my name,” Laker said.
Laker has spent her career to date working with Curly James. “My nana and my father were lucky enough to buy him at the yearling sales and I’ve been working
him from the start,” she said.
Laker said she was confident of a good first up showing from Curly James.
“He always puts 100 per cent effort into his races and while his track work at home has been really good, his couple of trials haven’t been the best as he’s been very lazy and I’ve been soft on him at the trials, so I knew when David got on him with a change of gear he’d be hard to beat,” she said.
“He looks good and feels good so we were extremely confident in him tonight if he found the front.” Laker’s transition into the sport comes as no surprise as her extended family is the prominent Mifsud clan.
“I’m related to the Mifsuds so my whole family is in it- there’s Rita, Aussie, Rosie, Josie and Uncle Netto, they’ve obviously been a big support” she said.
“And both David and Kasey (Kent) have been a real big support in my career along with my Dad and Nan, they’ve all made me who I am today.”
Lightly raced filly Shesawish chalked up another feature race win when she led all the way in the Group 3 VHRC The Holmfield at Melton on Saturday.
Anthony Butt ensured the Neville Pangrazio trained Shesawish was up on the bit early in order to hold the lead from the coveted pole position.
“Nev just left it to me really, we knew we had the good draw and we wanted to make the most of it,” Butt said.
John Dunne
