The Penrith Paceway hasn’t changed much since it’s last upgrade in 1999, but the horses who race there have changed dramatically.

We all get caught up in the hype surrounding racing’s elite horses, and it’s easy to overlook the achievements of the bread and butter brigade. Serious students of the sport would be aware, that a horse called Bettor Party, currently racing in Adelaide has one of the best strike rates in the country.

Most owners and trainers who come away from the sales with a pacing bred yearling, rarely give a thought to the possibility that it might trot.  Many potentially good trotters have gone undiscovered, because they’ve never been tried at the alternative gait.

So sorry to learn that Victorian trainer Bruce Morgan is a patient in the Royal Melbourne Hospital, after suffering a stroke at his Bendigo stables last week. The esteem in which this man is held by all sections of the Victorian harness racing industry, was acknowledged in the most fitting way in 2015. He was awarded the Gordon Rothacker Medal, named after a doyen of the sport, and a role model to a young Bruce Morgan in the 60’s and 70’s.

Tasmania’s Rattray family made an astute decision almost two years ago, when they decided to geld their unnamed Roll With Joe/Ashkalini colt. The youngster was showing some promising signs in his early education, but good manners were not amongst them.