Many commercial horse trainers drive themselves to the races while their horses are transported by major floating companies. Life’s a bit different for Rebecca Dunn.

When Vauban arrived in Melbourne for his first Cup mission in 2023, he’d raced fourteen times for seven wins, including three over hurdles.

Darryll Kell was still pinching himself on Sunday morning in the wake of Mahogany Girl’s gutsy win in the Polytrack Provincial-Midway Championship Qualifier at Hawkesbury.

As El Morzillo swamped the opposition to win Saturday’s $1 million dollar Inglis Sprint, it was hard to believe this was only her second win and a full thirteen months after the first.

It wasn’t so much his six wins for the month but the way he won them, that qualifies Wayne Wilkes for the February award.

“It’s a good feeling to take a horse to the races and know he or she will give you optimum performance win, lose or draw,” was the quote from trainer Nathan Doyle

It’s not hard to imagine the reaction in homes, pubs and clubs when Grant Buckley coaxed La Bella Bondi to a narrow win in Saturday’s 1200m maiden at Newcastle.

It wasn’t until last Friday that Michael Cahill started to question his decision to retire from race riding - a decision he’d been tossing around for the last four or five years.

Former ace photographer Steve Hart has been hosting occasional racing luncheons at the Swansea RSL for a number of years now.

Brad Widdup can’t recall having trained a longer priced metropolitan winner than Art’s Alive in Saturday’s Asahi Super Dry Hcp at Rosehill Gardens.

Muswellbrook trainer Jan Bowen maintained her consistent strike rate with a quartet of wins for the month just gone.

A Group 3 win at Sandown on Saturday with a horse owned by his 94 year old father should have been a joyous occasion for trainer Grahame Begg.

Of the ninety seven horses to contest ten races at Rosehill Gardens, few if any had more presence than Shohisha who looked the winner a long way from home in the 1200m Midway.

Joe Pride has never regarded himself as a hopeless sentimentalist, but he did confess to a hint of nostalgia after saddling up two winners at Wyong’s first ever stand-alone meeting.

I’m not sure that we’ve ever had a dual winner of the Pryde’s monthly award for country trainers, but December results have changed all of that.

On any other sweltering Sunday the thought of a near 500 km road trip towing a horse float would have held little appeal. Last Sunday however trainer Nick Olive felt no pain as he departed his Queanbeyan stables with just one horse on board

A buoyant Port Macquarie crowd swelled by holidaymakers was treated to a masterclass by talented young jockey Anna Roper on Sunday.

Chad Lever had just departed his Hawkesbury base bound for Moruya when he answered his car phone on Sunday morning.

It was way back in 1995 when Steve Hart and former jockey Malcolm Fitzgerald floated the idea of making an annual Christmas visit to the children’s wards at Randwick and Westmead Hospitals.

Larry Cassidy’s the first to admit he enjoyed a charmed run as a professional jockey for the first three decades of his long career.