SWAN Hill trainer Helen Burns took her recent purple patch to new heights at the weekend with winners at Benalla and Horsham.
The twin triumphs followed her success the week before with Rafha’s Choice at the Moulamein Cup non-TAB meeting, which was blitzed by fellow Swan Hill trainers Austy Coffey, who won the cup, Nathan Hobson, Noel Watson and Con Kelly, who won four of the six races.
But Burns admits it was a quirk of fate which helped her other horses – Golwen and The Last Judgement – rack up their wins at the weekend.
She had sent both to the Stawell races in the charge of others and says when they were about 30km-40km down the road the rim on one of the float’s wheels cracked.
“Fortunately they were able to get it fixed while I was working out how to get a car and float to them, helped by a local farmer, and they finally got to Stawell just in time to see the races cancelled,” Burns said.
“So they had to turn around and come all the way home again.
“Which gave me two horses with fresh legs, so when I started getting ready to float them out, that same one had another failed tyre and rim, which we were able to replace and then ducked inside for some breakfast before leaving – when we came out the tyre was flat again.
“We found a big nail in it, at least it wasn’t the wheel again.”
In the end all her horses hit the road and Burns is glad they did.
At Benalla in the $20,000 Royal Hotel Benalla Handicap (2100m), Golwen caused one of the upsets of the day when Laura Lafferty paced the seven-year-old gelding beautifully, using plenty of cover around the track before swinging into the clear on the turn home and running away with the race – at odds long enough to pay a princely $32.60.
“He’s been showing promise but has had trouble settling in his races, until last week at Swan Hill when Jaylah Kennedy rode him, and he started pulling, settled down, pulled again and then settled again, and he seems to have improved from there,” Burns said.
“If was his fourth start for me – he’s run at Balranald, Hamilton and Swan Hill – and his first win, and the second of his seven-start career.”
Burns says not only was it her first win with the horse, it was also the first win with her for some of her loyal owners, including N.&J. Morrish, the Appleby family, L. Wallis and Mrs M. Chalmers.
“Both horses pulled up well after their wins and got their breath back pretty quickly so I reckon they will both be able to go around soon – I am looking at Kerang on December 30 and possibly Echuca on New Year’s Eve.
“There is an 1800m at Kerang, which would suit Golwen, or there’s normally a 2000m at Echuca.”
Both towns are close enough to Swan Hill that if there are more problems with the floats and those wheels it will either be easy to get a second float sent out or the horses could walk to the tracks.
