John Caldow drives Sky Petite to victory in the DNR Logistics Trot at Melton.
Owner-breeder Noel Pattison attributes Sky Petite's success to the talented trotter's considerable ticker, quite fitting given the joy she’s brought to the cockles of his heart.
A winner of 13 of her 25 starts, Sky Petite will step out in Saturday night’s Group 3 Harness Breeders Victoria Lightfoot Laurels at Tabcorp Park Melton, a chance for the four-year-old to break through at Group level.
“It’s a good challenge for her, unless they get the chance to take on the best you will never know how good they are,” Pattison said.
The journey is very personal for the trots participant from Grahamvale, near Shepparton. His son, Dean, trains Sky Petite, who was bred when Pattison’s mare Thepowerofhealing was serviced by Skyvalley.
Thepowerofhealing, a winner of 20 of her 78 races including the Charlton, Wangaratta and Bendigo trotters cup, was bred by Pattison’s late daughter, Leanne, who died from kidney complications before the filly out of Maori’s Idol would begin her illustrious career.
“She was excellent,” Pattison said of Thepowerofhealing. “She just got better as she got older. She raced great as a seven and eight-year-old, but her handicap just got too hard for her and that’s why we got her in foal.”
When selecting a suitor for his mare Pattison sided with a stallion in his first season as a sire.
“Skyvalley raced against Thepowerofhealing and was a very impressive looking trotter,” he said. “I just took a liking to him.”
Come this season Skyvalley is a runaway leading of Victoria’s trotting sires and juvenile trotting sires' premierships.
In that same season he also had his unraced mare Clefary, Thepowerofhealing’s mother, serviced by Skyvalley and she produced Leannes Legacy, a tribute to Pattison’s late daughter.
“Without a shadow of doubt Leanne is in the forefront because she loved these horses too,” he said. “She’s always mentioned, because she is the reason we have Sky Petite. We wouldn’t have had Thepowerofhealing if Leanne hadn’t bred her.”
The stable has always had a strong opinion of Sky Petite.
“Steven Duffy broke him in for me and right from the word go he said ‘I don’t know how good she is going to be, but she is going to be good’,” Pattison said. “As a two-year-old she had a bit of leg trouble. The same thing happened as a three-year-old. Now at age four she’s been travelling absolutely amazingly and become the full package.”
Three starts as a two-year-old produced a win and two seconds, and nine starts as a three-year-old resulted in five wins and a second in the Vicbred Super Series Group 1 final.
Since February 25 she has stepped out 13 times and been first past the post on eight occasions, missing a place only once when fourth, beaten 4.8m, in the Vicbred Super Series Group 1 four-year-old trot.
“They all said she’s too small,” Pattison said. “It doesn’t matter how big you are, it’s how big your heart is."
She will have to draw on that in Saturday night’s $20,575 feature, when she will run into a competitive field including Vicbred placegetters Aldebaran Deebee and Val Gardena and Brent Lilley’s fancied backmarker Maori Time.
“There is a very good horse in this one in Maori Time, who gives us 20m and I just hope (Sky Petite) does her best,” Pattison said.
Media enquiries:
Michael Howard (HRV Media/Communications Co-Ordinator)
t: 03 8378 0286 | e: mhoward@hrv.org.au | tw: @MichaelRHoward
