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<\/p>\n
Those numbers started to dip when the Bendigo Harness Racing Club started operating its own trials.<\/p>\n
While those numbers have tumbled, about a dozen trainers from across the region still attend the Thursday night trials or use the track for workouts.<\/p>\n
Unlike the faster-paced trials at Bendigo and Maryborough, frequented by established racehorses, the Marong trials appeal to trainers wanting to educate their mainly young or unraced horses in a less high-pressure environment.<\/p>\n
“You go to Bendigo or Maryborough for trials, they race against fully-fledged racehorses and they are stuck 80-metres out the back. They haven’t learned anything,” Newton said.<\/p>\n
“Here, they have two or three laps behind the mobile and then they go off together and sort themselves out.<\/p>\n
“It does help the trainers get their horses to the track.<\/p>\n
“Years ago, (Sutton Grange trainer) Ross Graham came up to me and said, ‘You know, Wally, those eight two-year-olds I brought out \u2013 all of them have won a race because they learned to go behind the mobile \u2026 no pressure’.”<\/p>\n
At the bargain rate of $5 per horse, you would be hard pressed to find cheaper trials anywhere in Australia.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Marong track can lay claim to being the nursery of some of Australia’s harness racing greats.<\/p>\n Talk on trial nights still often turns to the time when champion pacer Popular Alm blitzed the field by 40 or more metres as a two-year-old in his first trial, a stunning prelude to his Hall of Fame career that delivered 49 wins from 62 starts including the 1983 Miracle Mile, two Winfield Cups (1982-83), 1993 AG Hunter Cup and a world record 1:53.2 mile trial in 1983.<\/p>\n “We had two other Inter Dominion winners come down and trial \u2013 Brer Rabbit and Lenny Maher’s Transpec,” Newton said.<\/p>\n Running the trials, largely with the help of just two other people, has been a labour of love for Newton, who will turn 84 next month, and his wife Heather, who runs the canteen.<\/p>\n He insists he will miss the social side of trials night more than anything once they are wound up.<\/p>\n “It’s a great little community that we’ve built up here,” he said.<\/p>\n “It will be sad to see it go.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n “The difference with our trotting track is it’s not just used by horses, there are people who jog around it, and in summer you often see people pushing their prams around the track.<\/p>\n “There are a lot of people who stop and chat to me when I’m over at the track, who tell me they hope it doesn’t close down.<\/p>\n “A lot more people than harness racing people will miss out when we’re gone.”<\/p>\n Newton proudly said the club had always peacefully co-existed with other sporting tenants, which included Marong’s football, netball, cricket and bowls clubs.<\/p>\n Trainer Ray Sutton estimates he has been making the trip into Marong from Sebastian for at least 30 years.<\/p>\n He finds the relaxed atmosphere and trials format to his liking.<\/p>\n “It’s sad to see it going \u2026 it’s a great stepping stone for the horses,” he said.<\/p>\n “If you go straight to Bendigo (to trial), it’s a bigger step than without coming to somewhere here first.<\/p>\n “I only do it as a hobby; I’m nearly 68, but have been doing it since I was 14 and got my licence when I was 16.<\/p>\n “I’ve always brought the horses out here to trial, so I’ll miss coming out here.<\/p>\n “Life moves on I suppose; harness racing has plenty of worries of its own.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sutton, a part-time farrier with four horses currently in work, said he felt most disappointed for the club’s small, but “totally devoted” committee.<\/p>\n “You’re always made to feel welcome,” he said.<\/p>\n For Goornong trainer-driver Nigel Milne, the Marong educational trials have been a staple of his training regimen for the past 15 years.<\/p>\n He considers their value to inexperienced horses as priceless.<\/p>\n “You just can’t beat it. All of us love the opportunity to come out here and work the horses without any pressure,” Milne said.<\/p>\n “We all appreciate the fact they will let you do what you want to do, how far you want to go, and if you want to see the gate and run around, they will let you do that.<\/p>\n “Everyone works in with everyone else, so everyone benefits. No one takes off on their horse and goes flat knacker. Trainers are sending their horses around for the common good.<\/p>\n “I bring all my young horses here to be educated and you can’t beat that.<\/p>\n “If you go to the likes of Bendigo or those other tracks, they go lickety split; if your horse basically sits at the back and they are going like that out front, it doesn’t learn how to be competitive.<\/p>\n “On top of that, it’s a great little community out here on trial nights.<\/p>\n “There’s no pressure, the horses always pull up well and everyone pitches in to help each other out.<\/p>\n “I love kicking back at the end of it, having a drink and a bit of a pow-wow.<\/p>\n “Hearing about the old days from some of the guys, you always leave here a little wiser.”<\/p>\n Importantly, Milne said him and his wife Danielle and children Ngaire and Myiah had always been made to feel welcome at Marong and was sure all other trainers and families would say the same.<\/p>\n “There’s always been a core of people here and they’ve always been here for the right reasons, that being, so everyone can enjoy it,” he said.<\/p>\n “It’s a great facility and it’s a shame it will be lost.<\/p>\n “Hopefully, we can get something else somewhere.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" NEARLY 50 years after its establishment through the hard work of local trotting trainers and owners, the Marong Light Harness Racing Club has entered the bell lap. When daylight saving ends on 4 April, the curtain will come down on the club’s weekly Thursday night educational trials at Malone Park and soon after its tenancy […]<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/static.timesnewsgroup.com.au\/prod\/uploads\/sites\/24\/2026\/02\/Marong4_45290.jpg\")
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