There was one heart stopping incident in the mid seventies which could have halted Dean Chapple’s love affair with harness racing before it got off the ground.

There’s nothing I’ve enjoyed more over the years than the many conversations I’ve had with veteran horsemen - especially harness horsemen who were around in the days when the sport was drawing big crowds all around Australia.

You’ll be hard pressed to find a horseman who isn’t enamoured of the sight of a talented trotter in full flight. Power Productions have kindly allowed me access to a video production highlighting the poetry of the trotting horse and the devotion of those who train them.

Wayne Dimech was in his mid-teens when Hondo Grattan was dominating the harness racing headlines in the early 1970’s. He had obviously inherited the harness racing genes from his Maltese forebears.

Ian Verning doesn’t mind his life long nickname of “Spud” although he is frustrated by the fact that he has no idea of its origins.

Australian harness racing currently boasts a plethora of talented drivers in the 20-25 age bracket. Those who appear regularly on metropolitan tracks enjoy the bulk of available media attention.

Trainers lucky enough to have a runner at a major trots meeting are conscious of the atmosphere only big time racing can generate. Miracle Mile night is something else again.

There’s no better pointer for punters than a Darren Hancock trained horse turning up at Penrith. The leading horseman has been an unabashed fan of the 1400m Menangle circuit since its inception in 2008

The 2022 Penrith racing year concluded on December 29th with what looked to be a run of the mill programme on paper. It took a rare training double by father and daughter duo David and Katie McGill, to inject a little “buzz” into the night.

Sean Grayling is emerging as a pretty serious race driver, and he appears to have a good handle on the art of training a harness horse.