Ken Casellas | Photo: PACEPIX
“We’re just battlers who take pride in our horses,” said 62-year-old Mark Norman after Mitch Miller had brought $16.80 chance Blitzar home with a determined burst from ninth at the bell to win the $21,000 Running Camel Summer Series Maiden final over 2130m at Gloucester Park on Friday night.
The victory gave owner Norman his first success in a brief training career with a pacer bred by his father Alan Norman (86), a prominent breeder, owner, trainer and reinsman in the 1980s and 1990s.
It was in that period that Norman had driven a few winners for his father before he concentrated on his cricket career as a middle-order first-grade batsman for the Willetton club.
“I had a 75 per cent success rate of placings and wins as a driver before I chose cricket ahead of harness racing,” he said. “I’m a full-time carer for Dad, but I’m also a published author, a journalist in the hospitality industry, writing positive stories on the hospitality business around Australia.
“My sister Vicki was one of the first female drivers in the State back in the eighties, and my brother Bradley was an excellent driver who won many races. Bradley has been for many years one of the world’s leading marine scientists, an authority on whale sharks who is currently the guest speaker on a luxury yacht cruising in the Timor Sea. And my sister is a top-line scientist.”
The family started breeding pacers in the 1980s with Vein Of Gold, a Romeo Hanover mare who won at four of her 62 starts. Vein Of Gold’s second foal was On Golden Pond, a mare who raced 108 times for eight wins, 23 placings and $34,500 in prizemoney. She finished third behind Alfa Dyna in the 1992 WA Oaks.
On Golden Pond was a good broodmare who produced Our Golden Finale (17 wins), Miss Placed (five wins from 30 starts for $96,704, including her win in the group 1 $100,000 Two-Year-Old Sires in June 2007) and Full Package, who in his ten-year career raced 298 times for 23 wins, 56 placings and $176,118.
On Golden Pond’s ninth and final foal was the Blissfull Hall mare Momentous, who had 50 starts for two wins, four seconds and stakes of $12,042.
The only foal out of Momentous is the Follow The Stars gelding Blitzar, who has been handled by five different drivers in his five-start career of one win, two placings and $14,929. Teenager Abbey Vidovich brought Blitzar home with a strong burst to finish second to Hold Your Fire at Gloucester Park on January 21 to qualify the gelding for Friday night’s race. Norman wanted her to drive Blitzar in the final, but she had not qualified to drive in city-class events.
Blitzar turned the tables on Hold Your Fire in the final, with that pacer setting the pace and holding on to finish third, with Arise Lazarus fighting on to take second place.