Veteran racer marks metro trifecta

AN Inverleigh-based harness racer’s recent win in Melton has completed a personal trifecta of major victories at Victoria’s three premier trotting and pacing venues .

Bob Kuchenmeister’s win during the Summer of Glory at Melton’s TabCorp Park last month cemented his third success at a premier track, having first won in Melbourne more than 40 years ago.

Kuchenmeister scored victories at the old Melbourne Showgrounds and Moonee Valley when they were Harness Racing Victoria’s premier venues, and said he wanted to continue the streak when the organisation relocated to Melton in 2010.

“This was a goal for me once they shifted the showgrounds out from Moonee Valley to Melton,” he said. “I thought now I’ve got to win a major race here.

“There’s only about five or six of us that have done this, I don’t know how many exactly, but now I’m one of them.

“I won a smaller before one in Melton in 2021, and I’d also run a couple places up there but I hadn’t actually won big yet with a metropolitan.”

Melton marked the 10th win for standardbred mare Leanne Leeann, who is owned by Kuchenmeister’s neighbour Brooke Sadler and her mother Jan McLennan and was bred by deceased Meredith policeman Jack Powles.

Having growing up around horses in South Australia and beginning his harness racing career in the early 1970s, Kuchenmeister was encouraged to get involved in the sport while working as a taxi driver in Geelong.

His previous Melton win was during the Nutrien Equine Trot in late 2021.

Kuchenmeister also recently raced at the Ballarat leg of the Inter Dominion in December and said he sees no reason to slow down.

“The love of it has kept me in it, simple as that,” he said. “I just love it, it’s a terrific sport.

“I’m a retired man and I just plod along. Most of my horses have been rejects and that’s also what’s kept me in it, getting them into shape.

“Everybody says ‘oh, you’re a bit old and slow, it’s a pretty dangerous caper,’ but danger’s just what you make of it.”