Another dominant year in the sulky for leading driver, Daryl Douglas
Daryl Douglas had his feet up for the final few days of the 2010/11 harness season, but it didn’t stop the tireless reinsman from scoring yet another dominant win in the Australian Drivers’ Premiership.
The Bendigo driver, who hasn’t participated since last Saturday night’s Menangle meeting, partnered 379 winners for the racing year, which concluded yesterday, to win the national award for a sixth straight season.
But while Douglas fell marginally short of his Australasian record of 388 - achieved in the 2007/08 season - the 38-year-old recorded personal best figures in most other areas.
Group 1 wins in the Queen Of The Pacific (Life Inthefastlane) and Vicbred Super Series 3YO Colts and Geldings Final (Devilish Smile) equalled his previous best haul of two Group 1s in a season.
The $2,596,340 his 2292 drives amassed – he also logged 343 and 285 thirds – was the most he had accumulated for connections in any one season.
That took to almost $23 million the amount his drives have earnt in his 20-year driving career and he is on the cusp of joining Gavin Lang, Chris Alford and Chris Lewis as the only Australian drivers to have partnered 4000 career winners since records started being kept in 1980.
Douglas’s tally entering 2011/12 is 3929 – almost half of which have been driven in the past six seasons. He first topped 300 winners in 2006/07, when he drove 320, and has since partnered 388, 358 and 322, having driven more than 200 winners in each of the previous six seasons.
All but 20 of Douglas’s winners last season came in Victoria, affording him a resounding win in the Victorian Drivers’ Premiership for the sixth straight season.
Chris Alford finished a distant second, with 264 winners, while Gavin Lang was the other man to have cracked the double-ton, finishing the racing year with 218 victories.
Douglas’s win completed a family double for the fourth consecutive year with his brother Glenn again crowned the Victorian Trainers’ Premiership winner.
The Bendigo-based 37-year-old trained a personal best 150 winners to score a dominant win over Melton-based former Kiwi Brent Lilley (102) and with Peter Manning, who prepared his 100th winner for the season at yesterday’s Stawell meeting, in third.
The other premiership that was finalised yesterday was the Concession Drivers’ Premiership, which went the way of Charlton reinsman Ellen Tormey, whose 57 wins afforded her a 10-win buffer over Glen Craven.
Click here to view the Victorian State Premierships table
