A ‘Living Legend’

Great Western trainer-driver Kerryn Manning has joined the Caduceus Club of Victoria’s Living Legends – the first female to win the harness-racing honour.

The award honours people who have made significant contributions to their industry through years of service and achievement and the prestige they have brought to their sport.

Based on wins, Manning, 42, is the most successful female reinswoman or jockey in the world.

The 27th Living Legend inductee, Manning joins her father Peter, who was inducted in 2006.

“You work hard and get some results and that helps you each day to do what you love,” Manning said.

“I’d like to thank everybody who helps me. My husband, Grant, who’s a big part of Allbenz Park. He’s the backbone and without him I couldn’t do what I do. All my staff, all my owners and all my family – my father who’s taught me everything that I needed to know early in life.”

Manning left school after year 10 to work on her father’s Great Western farm, driving her first winner on Gorgeous Gambit in Ararat at 16 and then the following year won on her metropolitan debut steering Scotty Wiper.

Manning has since amassed 3825 victories from 16,126 starts in the sulky.

She launched a training career from 2003-04, producing 922 winners from 3831 starts.

Career highlights include a Scandinavian tour with Knight Pistol in 1996 and victory in Norway, which gave instant celebrity status among Europe’s trotting-mad audience.

She also had international success in 2016 when she crossed the Tasman with 2015 A. G. Hunter Cup winner Arden Rooney, leading all the way to win the New Zealand Trotting Cup and becoming the first women to achieve such a feat.