WHEN harness trainer Christian Salter leased seven-year-old mare Miss Lively on the advice of his good friend Jason Mackrill he was hoping for some early success but after two starts her new owner thought she was a dud.
But at her third start the daughter of Live or Die delivered the goods and she has been delivering ever since.
At Burnie on Sunday night she stepped straight to the front in the marathon Burnie Cup over 2798 metres and was never headed on her way to defeating Hello Good Shanks by over eight metres with Musselroe Bay a long neck away third.
It was her third win in succession and her fourth from seven starts in Tasmania.
Salter couldn’t attend the meeting on Sunday night due to work commitments but the mare’s driver Nathan Ford said she was a progressive type that would win more races.
“We gave her a trial from a stand at New Norfolk and she went OK but it was still touch and go whether we’d come here (to Burnie)” Ford said.
“I thought she would get away from a stand if I could get her to stand still for long enough.”
“But she is very touchy and has a tendency to swing around.”
She proved to be quite fractious at the start, rearing and making life difficult for the driver and the starter.
But Ford got her to settle just as he tapes released and she stepped straight to the front.
“I thought if she led she would be very hard to run down,” he said.
It was Ford’s first success in a Burnie Cup and it made up for a second in the race two years ago aboard Stone Skipper.
It has been a brilliant month for Ford who has been enjoying success as both trainer and driver, especially with Star Chamber that won the $40,000 Group 3 Tasmania Cup on December 21 and followed up with a win in a heat of the Hobart pacing Cup in which he will start favourite on Sunday.