Racing loves stories about those who strike gold but in trainer Malcolm Hutchings’s extraordinary story it is quite literally true.
Because when the Parkes trainer scored the first group one of his career with Terryrama at Bathurston Wednesday night he wasn’t at the track, he was working down a gold mine.
Malcolm Hutchings mixes working horses with work and in his case that is driving a truck at theNorthparkes gold mine 25kms north of Parkes.
There are no-phones allowed in the workplace so Hutchings had no idea his son Brett had partnered the 80-1 winner in the $100,000 TAB Western Region Championship at Gold Crown Paceway until he was able to telephone home during a break two hours after the race.
“I couldn’t believe it, it was a hell of a thrill,” says Hutchings.
“I got back on the mine radio when I got back in the truck and told everyone we had had a winner and they were pretty stoked for me.
“Then I told them it wasn’t an ordinary winner, it was a group one race and the winner gets $52,500 and they all started cheering and congratulating me on the radio. That was pretty special.”
Hutchings usually works most nights in the mine so the training is a family affair.
Brett, who was driving his 101st winner in the group one success, found Terryrama online and he was only for sale because his previous trainer got frustrated trying to teach him to pace.
“I liked his breeding but thought something must be wrong with him and it turned out he could be a real handful,” said Brett.
“But my brother Mitch, who works for the council here in Parkes, wanted a horse so he paid $800 for him and he gave him to his fiancé Sara.
“They are buying a house so this couldn’t have come at a better time.”
Now Terryrama that is developing a brain to match his motor he could even take Team Hutchings tothe bigger Menangle track when state-wide racing returns.
But while Malcolm Hutchings may be the horse trainer who struck gold twice in one night, they party differently in the Hutchings house.
“None of us drink so it won’t be that sort of party,” says Brett.
“But it means so much of us. Dad came down to the stables when he got home at 7.30am this morning and it was a great moment for us all.
“But then he had to go to bed,” he laughs.
The Hutchins family have been in harness racing all their lives relishing the exciting performances of Diamante Hanover which was trained and driver by father and grandfather Tom.
Diamante Hanover in the late 1970’s competed in the triple crown of Australian harness racing the Miracle Mile, Inter Dominion Final and Hunter Cup. The horse was the original “Battler’s Champion” who won races at tracks all over the nation but was a star of places like Trundle and Lithgow where he was appreciated by those who dreamed to one day race a ‘bloody little champion’ as Tommy Hutchings did.
