Double for Faulks and Orange at Oamaru

By Mike Love

Burnham trainer Andrew Faulks had a day out yesterday when he trained a double at the Oamaru meeting.

“It was good! I’m rapt,” said Faulks.

The first of the double came with trotter Lucinda Hest who made her customary good beginning from the outside of the front line to lead for driver Blair Orange. She was able to fight off all challengers, winning by one and a quarter lengths from the Amber Hoffman trained Get Along.

“It’s been a while coming for her. Her work had been good going into it. Hopefully she can just go on with it.”

“The owners Colin and Shirley Campbell from Dunedin have been great. Been in the game a longtime. It’s good to get a win for them. I encouraged them to breed this one. The mother (Nordic Sun) is a half sister to Leighton Hest who was by Dream Vacation. So we were hoping for something good!

“We will just keep going and find suitable races for her.”

Later in the day, Winnzyback made it three wins from six starts when he won the Stephen Heffernan At Property Brokers Mobile Pace. Winnzyback was restrained at the start by driver Blair Orange before a mid race move to lead from the 1000m, fighting hard to hold off runner up Dance With The Boss for trainer Matt Purvis.

“He doesn’t do much at home but he sparks up when we get to the trials or races.

"Blair said he’s still pretty dumb, and wants to hang and run about a bit, but at least he wants to find the line, so that’s a pretty good attribute to have for a racehorse!”

“Hopefully we can find a race for him on Cup day and give something for the owners to come up and have a day out.”

Faulks trains a team of 12 from his Burnham base, half of which are young ones.

In addition to the Faulks and Orange double, Mark and Nathan Purdon trained a double with warm favourites We Walk By Faith driven by Devon van Til and Mon Lancome driven by Olivia Thornley, while Graeme Telfer drove his first winner in seven years when he drove Hanover Da Moon to victory in Race 8. He also trains the horse.