Brothers Daryl (left) and Glenn Douglas have won Victoria's driving and training premierships
Victorian harness racing’s 2008/09 premiership winners have been known for some time, but with the curtain now officially down on another racing year the champions can be declared.
Bendigo brothers Daryl and Glenn Douglas have again claimed the state driver and trainer premierships, while Shepparton young gun Nathan Jack has secured another leading concession driver crown.
Daryl Douglas, Australia’s premier driver of the past four seasons, added a fourth straight Victorian drivers’ premiership to his record.
The 36-year-old partnered 343 Victorian winners for the 12-moth period ending August 31 to hold a 101-win advantage over seven-time winner Chris Alford.
It was a record-breaking year for Victorian drivers. For the first time, 10 drivers partnered 100 winners for the season in the Garden State.
Metropolitan driving champion Gavin Lang took his tally to 171 with a double at Cobram yesterday, while Jodi Quinlan (140), Kerryn Manning (132), Jack (130), John Caldow (111), Brian Gath (107), Lance Justice (102) and Greg Sugars (100) were the others to crack the ton.
Training 100 winners proved a much tougher feat, but there were three men who managed it.
Glenn Douglas, 34, finished with 131 winners to snare back-to-back titles, while four-time winner Peter Manning (109) and Lance Justice (104), who won the metro trainers’ premiership with 27 wins, also achieved the feat.
Jack had a 67-win advantage over his nearest rival, Chris Lang Jnr, to secure his third consecutive Victorian concession drivers premiership.
Sire premierships were also decided. Alabar’s Village Jasper was the season’s leading sire with 259 winners in Victoria and $1,963,650 in stakes.
Seventy-nine of those wins, and $624,921, came via three-year-olds, which presented him with the title for that age group, while Empire’s freshman stallion Modern Art was the most prolific two-year-old sire with 25 winners for the season.
Leading broodmare sire was the irrepressible What’s Next, whose progeny produced the winners of 191 races and almost $1.3 million in stakes.
