CHASING a century of winners, Kristy Sheehy is not as far away as she thinks. With 2015/16 being her best season yet, having 200 drives for 20 winners and 48 placings, and despite working a full-time job at Hammond Park Family Practice, Sheehy has no intentions to stop driving and admits that it will forever play a significant part in her life.
When her parents split at a young age, Sheehy was raised by her grandparents on a twenty acre property in Jandakot with younger siblings Kasey and Jack, and they couldn’t have imagined a better upbringing. With her biggest supporters being her role model and Pop, or as she likes to call him, Gepar, and her father, well-known harness racing identity Tommy, she admits that the split has done nothing but make her strong as a person.
Being away from home wasn’t an irregular occurrence for Sheehy. In 2012 she made her first move away from Western Australia when she ventured east to work for Lance Justice. Returning again in 2013, she stayed for a longer stint before returning home where she became dominant in the Junior Driver Series.
Having one of the most synonymous names in the pacing game, Sheehy has represented Western Australia twice in the WA series since it started in the 2013/14 season. Taking out both the 2013/14 and 2014/15 series, and missing out on winning the 2015/16 series when getting suspended in the last round, she became a regular in New South Wales and in 2014 decided to call it home for the following eight months, working for Menangle trainer Jarrod Alchin.
Returning home in 2015, it wasn’t long before she made a dominant return in the sulky, driving a treble at Northam for another major influence on her upbringing, Kristian Hawkins, with Just Jamie, Danieljohn and Brave Stranger, her first of many trebles to come.
Sheehy describes her best friend as a ‘little bulldog with a heart of gold’ and the tiny bay gelding ‘Bhagwan’ is just that. Together they have a total of five wins and are very rarely out of the money. Sheehy also speaks highly of her go to girl Kate Kerlsey, daughter to one of Western Australia’s sporting superstars Fred Kersley. Posing as her female role model, Kersley helped Sheehy through hardships and happiness, and was always there throughout her childhood.
Earlier this year, Sheehy’s partner trainer/driver Josh Dunn got down on one knee and proposed ever so romantically when they were away for a weekend in Busselton. Asking her to go and get his phone from the other room, Sheehy turned around to find Dunn on one knee asking for her hand in marriage. . . She said yes!
Confessing that she doesn’t want a big wedding, Sheehy’s five year plan is to have a family of her own, expressing how important it would be for her to be able to give her kids some of the things she may have missed out on. With the future intention to go into training partnership with her fiancé, Sheehy is enjoying the excitement of being an owner and eagerly awaits the day she watches the love of her life drive his first winner.
Favourite pastime: Bushwalking & exploring
Accomplishment you are most proud of: Winning two junior series
Weirdest quirk: My sense of humour
If you could be a celeb for a day who would it be: Jennifer Hawkins
Best looking person in harness racing: Joshua Dunn.
