Sian, Eliza, David and Aiden with 'Audrey' after the milestone win. Photo by Photography by Jodie Hallows
The countdown has been on for recent weeks, but on Monday March 25 at Pinjarra, David Young celebrated his 200th training win with the dark horse of his stable, Thats Not My Gait.
Explaining that he expected to get the milestone win with his stable star Patched, it was a welcomed surprise when Thats Not My Gait settled in a prime position in her trotters’ event, winning by a 3.8m margin in the fifth race on Monday.
“It’s hard to explain, I’m actually really proud of it (the 200-win achievement,)”
“I was actually very emotional”.
“A part of me wanted Patched to win it for obvious reasons.”
“I said to Sian at the 1200m mark, imagine if this is the one that wins it, the one that I didn’t want, we weren’t going to breed again from the mother, she was supposed to be a pacer, got her leg caught in the fence as a yearling and here it is now, Group 1 placed and won over $100,000 from a free service fee.”
A horse that almost never eventuated, only bred because David Young won a free service to Follow The Stars at Bunbury after failing to finish in the top three with another horse all those years ago, and to throw a spanner into the mix, Thats Not My Gait was bred to be a pacer.
Out of a pacing mare (Forever Happy) and by a pacing stallion, they realised early on that pacing was not her gait, and that’s when Young turned her training around, concentrating on trotting.
Audrey as she’s known around the stables made her racing debut in Victoria in the very capable hands of Alison and Chris Alford, but made her way back to WA in 2023, a winner of 12 races, five in WA.
Young made his training debut during the 2004/2005 season as an 18/19-year-old, and almost 19 years later, he has experienced some of the biggest highs the industry has to offer, particularly with Major Catastrophe, who he bred himself.
Major Catastrophe, the son of champion stallion Art Major and out of Adda Influence was foaled in September 2008, and went on to win 28 races from 131 starts, and over $426,000 in stakes, including delivering Young his first Group 1 with success in the $100,000 Pearl Classic in 2011.
But it was Patched who gave him his biggest thrill, when he and his partner Sian were going through the toughest time of their lives, losing their beautiful baby Brodie only a day earlier, Patched lifted spirits on February 3, 2023, allowing the Young/Hughes family to smile between tears when Patched took out the Gr2 Trotters Cup.
“I think that’s the one, that when I’m done and dusted, I will look back on and it will always be my best,”
“With everything we had going on that night, the further it gets away the more I realise how big it was.”
“I just feel as though it will be the one that will always be number one.”
Young currently has a team of 12 in work, including a couple of newcomers to the stable, Indomitable Symbol and Infinite Sign, who will debut for the stable in the coming weeks.
