Make Mine Cullen
His main aim for the week has always been to get Make Mine Cullen through to the $200,000 Group 1 Chariots Of Fire, but Daryl Douglas used the meantime to bring up yet another milestone.
The champion Bendigo reinsman notched his 3500th career winner when he won the second race on last night’s Shepparton Harness Racing Club meeting at Echuca aboard Hey Whats Doin.
It ranks the 37-year-old alongside Gavin Lang, Chris Alford and Chris Lewis as the only men to have achieved the feat.
The milestone comes just over a week after Douglas, who is on track for a fourth straight Australian Drivers’ Premiership, became the only driver to partner 250 winners in Victoria six seasons in a row.
Douglas will be desperate to make it 3501 winners with Make Mine Cullen in tonight’s Hondo Grattan Sprint at Menangle.
The crack four-year-old, trained by Douglas’s brother Glenn, needs a top-five finish to qualify for the July 30 Chariots, but Douglas will be endeavouring to keep her outstanding record in tact.
Last year’s Tabcorp Australasian Breeders Crown champion is yet to moss a place in 15 starts this season and counts the Group 1 Ladyship Mile and Silver Chalice among her 10 wins.
She's a $3.20 chance from barrier five in the 1609-metre mobile, in which Ima Rocket Star ($2.30 fav, barrier three) and Bill Galea-trained fellow Victorian, Living On Fire ($3.20, seven) shape as the main dangers.
The Hondo Grattan is race five on tonight’s eight-event card and will be run at 8.30pm.