Trainer back in the winner’s circle after six years

AFTER a six-year hiatus from the racing scene, Craig Conron has made a triumphant return to the winner’s enclosure.

It took only two starts for the Ballarat-based 62-year-old to notch up a welcome first win in his return to training, following Winning Toast’s breakthrough 1500m victory on the Ballarat Synthetic on Thursday last week.

An emphatic 5.25-length success broke a 2,441-day drought between wins for Conron, who gave the training game away in early 2019 following unsatisfying stints in Tasmania and Darwin.

For the past five years, he had been content making coffees from the fleet of vans he still owns.

While he admits he never fell out of love with the game, the racing bug had progressively started to nip harder and harder throughout the last 12 months.

“My daughter has a café and I started making coffee for her, so I decided to get a couple of coffee vans on my own and decided to that,” Conron said.

“But I missed the horses so much.

“One of my customers said to me ‘Why don’t we get a horse together?’ and we did it.

“He’s from Ballarat actually – I’d been in Melbourne – so I said ‘I’m going to Ballarat to train, as they have the best facilities in Victoria by far’.

“They’ve welcomed me with open arms.

“When I decided to give it another go, I had a look at a few tracks around Victoria. I don’t think anything comes close to Ballarat and what they can offer training-wise.

“I’ve been training a long time and it’s the best of the best.”

Having established himself on a property on Gillies Road, five minutes down the road from the racecourse at Miners Rest, Conron saddled up his first runner since April 2019 at Bendigo on May 6.

It was nearly a fairytale return with Winning Toast – previously trained by Peter Moody and Katherine Coleman – only narrowly beaten into second place after being wide without cover throughout the 1300m trip.

The three-year-old son of I Am Invincible – ridden by Ballarat jockey John Allen – was quick to make amends second-up for Conron, quickly looming up to the leaders at the 500m before bolting away from the field in the straight for a convincing win.

Conron admitted to having plenty of confidence in being able to break the drought at Ballarat on the strength of Winning Toast’s bold showing at Bendigo.

“He did draw the outside that day and didn’t have much luck, but he showed that he certainly had his foot completely in the till,” he said.

“It’s a bit hard to say how far he’ll go, but I don’t think he’s at his bottom.

“There is definitely a little bit more to come.

“I’ll probably take him to Swan Hill for the cup carnival there and hopefully Johnny (Allen) will stick with him.”

Conron, who previously spent about 25 years of his training career based in Geelong, has enjoyed some nice feature race wins throughout the journey.

 

Among the quickest to spring to mind is that of Judusk in the 2007 Wangoom Handicap at Warrnambool.

An unfulfilled talent of Conron’s was Distant Melody, who won brilliantly on debut at Terang as a three-year-old in 2008, before winning a listed race two weeks later at Flemington on the final day of the Melbourne Cup, before succumbing to injury after being unplaced in the Sandown Guineas.

Likely his best performer was the city-class sprinter Glamouremus, who won 10 of 26 starts, including about half a dozen down the Flemington Straight, but battled soundness issues.

A more than handy stayer, Big Colony was among Let’s Elope’s rivals in the Group 1 Australian Cup in 1992.

Conron, who is aiming to have about half-a-dozen horses on the books, is slowly but surely starting to build his new team up.

While Winning Toast is the only horse in the stable presently racing, he has another one in partnership with former Ballarat man Cameron Brown called Vegas Jack (also previously trained by Moody and Coleman) and has recently purchased Saucito, a five-start three-year-old formerly trained by Chris Waller.

“Without someone like Cameron, I probably wouldn’t have got back into it – but there’s no regrets about being away,” he said.

“I love making coffee – I really do – but my heart’s been in racing all my life.

“I have the privilege of doing both now – I can train horses as well.

“Darwin was a failure for me – it just didn’t work out.

“I came back and got out of racing and to be honest I was glad to be out of it at that time.

“But at Ballarat, I just feel like rebuilding and trying to kick on.

“I need clients – hopefully this horse might find me some.”