Duke of Wellington Southland horse of year

THE Lester Smithowned and bred Duke of Wellington was named horse of the year at the Southland Harness awards in Invercargill last night.

Duke of Wellington, now a 4yrold, had 10 starts last season from the Winton stable of

Lauren Pearson for five wins, three seconds and a third. The pacer won $54,280 in stakes during the season including the group 2 Southern Supremacy Stakes at Ascot Park on April 29.

The pacer, by American Ideal out of Galleons Honour, was bought by Victorian owners Merv and Meg Butterworth earlier this year and is likely to campaign in Australia after a spell.

The broodmare of the year award went to Joyfulbelle.

The Southland achievement of the year award went to owner Kenny Baynes.

Baynes, who lives on the outskirts of Gore. is the president of the Gore Harness Racing Club, owned 14 individual winners, and had 21 wins all up.

There were three winners in the awards of excellence category.

Havtime was one of them, courtesy of winning the $150,000 New Zealand Yearling Sales Series Final for 2yrold fillies at Alexandra Park in May when driven by Zac Butcher for trainer Barry Purdon.

The Mach Three filly and is owned by Invercargill cousins Malcolm and Murray Little, along with Malcolm’s wife Sarndra.

Murray Little is vicepresident of the Invercargill Harness Racing Club and a board member of Southern Harness.

Pat’s Delight who won a race at the Harness Jewels at Cambridge in June, also won an excellence award. He is trained at West Melton by Cran Dalgety and owned by Pat Kubala, of Gore.

Sheree Tomlinson, is the first female junior driver to win the Dominion Handicap.

She drove the unfancied Amaretoo Sun to victory in the Addington feature in November last year.