"Crazy" win a highlight for Tim Hall

By Michael Guerin

Most trainers would have given up on Crazy a long, long time ago. Tim Hall is glad he didn’t.

Because at Alexandra Park on Friday the trotter who has so often lived up to his name gave the Waikato trainer his biggest moment in harness racing.

A $35,000 Dunstan Feeds Metro Final may not sound like the biggest deal of the racing weekend but it puts a smile on your face when you only train a handful of horses in the morning and shoe in the afternoon like Hall does. 

To add to the delight Hall also drove Crazy, so it was both his biggest training and driving success.

He has earned it the hard way, with Crazy showing enormous potential early in his career but then having his wilderness years when he identified as a thoroughbred and acted accordingly at the races.

“But he has always been able to run and that is why I have stuck with him,” says the 40-year-old Hall.

“I mean, there are plenty of good mannered horses who are slow and you can’t do much with them but I knew he had the ability.”

So how did Hall cajole Crazy into not living up to his name?

“I worked out a few starts ago to get him in a mobile and as soon as they call them up, put his nose on the mobile arm and then don’t move,” laughs Hall.

“If you do that and don’t touch him he will follow the mobile arm out and after 20m you are good as gold.”

This new, well-behaved Crazy has trotted 2:45 in both his heat and then Friday night’s final of the Metro Series, aided by hot favourite Look To Da Stars being the one who galloped this week, but they are still a good trotter’s times.

“I only started driving him because Zachary [Butcher} who usually drives him was away down south one week and Nicky Chilcott didn’t have any other drives at Alexandra Park and I couldn’t ask her to go up just to drive him.

“So I thought rather than trying to explain him to somebody else I’d have a crack myself.”

That means Hall could also drive Crazy in the Golden Gait Final in two weeks with the added bonus he will be eligible for the lesser grade trot that night.

Hall had to share honours on the night with southern driver Sam Ottley though as she came north to drive in one feature race and won two, the first time she has had a double at The Park.

She flew to Auckland to partner Francent in the Caducues Club Breeders Stakes and the Mark Jones-trained mare was a “no excuses” winner over Arafura after sitting parkled outside the favourite.

“She hung a bit, which she can do down south, but at the top of the straight I started to think I was going better than Arafura, which was a nice surprise,” says Ottley.

Francent is clearly a good mare getting better and while she will meet tougher opposition in next week’s G1 Queen of Hearts Final she hasn’t found her ceiling yet.

The trip north gave Ottley the chance to also jump on Beta Prepare for good mate and trainer Arna Donnelly when she needed a catch driver in the Franklin Country Cup.

“It is very cool to get a winner here for Arna because she is so supportive of me.”

The double takes Ottley to 899 career wins and she heads to her old home track at Orari on Saturday hoping to bring up the 900 there.

Earlier in the night Tony Cameron continued his great association with American Muscle to take out the Queen Of Diamonds Prelude and Brooke Wilkins got her drive on Arden’s Memory inch perfect to win the Metro Pacing Final.