Husband and wife team Adam and Natalee Emery will go down in history as the winning trainer and driver combination of the first Tasmanian Trotting event in over 90 years.
Natalee slipped Ten Caisses (pictured-partially obscured on inside) through along the Roberts Sprint Lane to take out the Tasracing Trotters Return To Tassie Handicap in a blanket finish that saw only 2.7-metres cover the field of five trotters in Hobart on Sunday night.
"Nat and I are delighted to have won the first trotting race in nearly a century, we talked about getting involved when Tasracing first canvassed the idea of re-introducing trotting but we really only decided to go ahead over the June long weekend," said Adam.
"We put an advertisement up on the Trading Ring offering to train a trotter and the next day was contacted by the Brown family from Kapunda in South Australia and we were able to come to terms on training Ten Caisses for them here in Tasmania."
The Tennotrump-Encaisses six-year-old gelding had won eight of 56 starts before heading across Bass Strait including three of 17 this season.
"It all happened very quickly, we got the call on the Tuesday night and Ten Caisses had won the Strathalbyn Cup the day before so he arrived in Tasmania on the Friday of the same week, so we have only had him a fortnight," said Emery.
"Nat drove him in a trial at Devonport on Monday night to give him a hit-out and get a feel of him and he performed well and trotted throughout which he did again on Sunday, in fact all runners did which was great to see and it was a tremendous contest all the way down to the post, now that the concept has come to fruition I'm sure we will see other owners and trainers getting involved."
It was also a huge night for champion reinsman Ricky Duggan, guiding home four winners on the nine-event card starting with the Tony Petersen-trained Usain Jolt ($1.65) followed by the Marc Butler prepared Peaceful Thomas ($3.70) in the Sires Produce, Paul Hill's Streitkid ($1.30) and the Juanita McKenzie prepared Remeber Joe ($6.00).
Conor Crook has surged to the top of the BOTRA Claiming Novice Drivers Series points table after the second night of Heats with his winning drive on the Ben Yole-trained No Apachemee.
Wade Rattray moved to seventh on the table with his all the way victory on Inner Light ($9.00), upsetting the long odds-on favourite Similan Beach.
BOTRA Claiming Novice Drivers Leaderboard.
40 Conor Crook
34 Allister Woods
32 Matthew Cooper
30 Samantha Gangell
28 Samantha Freeman
27 Lee Simmonds
24 Wade Rattray
20 Brady Woods
16 Charlie Castles
11 Chris Aylett
The Series concludes in Launceston on Friday with the staging of Heats five and six.
