Patrick Power in action competing in campdrafting
Sixteen year old reinsman Patrick Power’s facebook account told the story after he drove his first race winner on Monday night at Fairfield when My Whiskey Lullaby took out race four. Power had his first race drive in November last year and broke through for his maiden win at his eleventh attempt.
“Over the moon with my first win tonight, more photos to come! – feeling ecstatic,” Power’s facebook post read.
Power was still ‘on cloud nine’ the following morning.
“I’m very happy, I’ve been around horses all of my life and it was a massive thrill to drive a winner,” Power said.
“I’ve been into campdrafting for a long time but I didn’t get into harness racing until I took my horse out to an agistment property one day and met some people involved in the sport.”
In campdrafting competition, a rider on horseback must control a cow, taking the beast out of a yard and through a course around pegs. The sport requires skill and horsemanship.
“I got introduced to Martin Herbert and was helping him out at Bankstown and then for the past eighteen months I have been working with Ronnie Lloyd.”
“I took out my C-grade licence and did all of my trial drives with Ronnie.”
Power thought My Whiskey Lullaby was a good chance on Monday but refused to get too excited pre-race after the mare finished last when first up at Newcastle.
“She had been working well leading up to Newcastle and I was pretty confident that she would run a good race there but she had other ideas.”
“She had some issues in the score up and ended up galloping at Newcastle so I wasn’t getting too far ahead of myself on Monday but I was very proud of her because she just kept on giving in the final lap and held on to win.”
Despite the thrill of winning a race, Power was back at work on Tuesday morning.
“Yeah, there wasn’t too much celebrating because there was work to be done today but it is definitely a feeling I will never forget.”
Here is the link to Power’s first race win - http://www.harnessmediacentre.com.au/trotstv/replays/19020
Harness Racing NSW (HRNSW) is the controlling body for harness racing in New South Wales with responsibility for commercial and regulatory management of the industry including 31 racing clubs across the State. HRNSW is headed by an industry-appointed Board of Directors and is independent of Government.
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