Steve and Amanda’s brother and sister training team broke the record for running race winners training in a season in which Elektra King, driven perfectly by Tim Williams, won just a $12,500 race at Westport on Sunday.
That took them to 169 wins for the running season, which ends on Wednesday, passing the 168 win mark set by training greats Roy and Barry Purdon since 1994.
The significance of that mark is not lost on Steve Telfer, who used to work for Barry Purdon and as a young man looked in wonder at a commemorative photo on the coffee room wall, celebrating the bosses setting the old record.
ELECTRIC KING REPEAT
It had seemed likely months ago that the Telfers would set a new record, but with so many of their stars pinned, it seemed the stable had run out of horses and luck for the past week.
“We were starting to get a little nervous because not much was going right, but we thought we had the numbers to get there,” says Steve.
“But it is a relief. It wouldn’t have been so much fun going to the last meeting of the season at Alexandra Park on Wednesday and having to find the winner to break the record.”
In fact, the clincher came at a grass track meeting in Westport, where few holidaymakers probably realized what they were seeing, and where Steve Telfer was lucky enough to even see it.
“There was even a power outage here [Ardmore] today since about 11am, but I was able to watch the win on my phone because I still had two bars of coverage left.
It may not have been Alexandra Park or Addington on a glamor day, but you don’t just train on the big circuits with 169 winners in a year.
That’s why the Telfers, backed by Stonewall Stud owner Steve Stockman, are so important to New Zealand harness racing.
Not only are the companies major breeders and the leading buyers at yearling sales, but they also support meetings across the country, generating attention and sales for meetings in the Deep South, Cambridge and even Manawatu and the West Coast this month.
“It’s important to support those clubs, so to get the record in Westport, a meeting I’ve never been to but would love to go to, is fine with us,” Telfer said.
The seeds of that record were sown over the past five years, when Stockman was fearless at yearling sales, and they began to germinate over the winter, when clever planning laid the foundation for what has now been achieved.
The Telfers decided to race hard in the winter, realizing that the stakes for graded racing were more or less the same as in the summer, but that many of their elite training rivals were dropping out at that time of year.
During the winter weekends they sometimes won seven or eight races, but all that added up to 169 on Sunday, two days after Steve Telfer celebrated his 55th birthday.
He celebrated that too on Sunday, with a very rare punch from a man who enjoys his victories but keeps his emotions private.
He began listing those who deserved thanks in the minutes after Elektra King’s record-setter quit.
“You know, there’s too many people to thank, from all our staff to farriers and all kinds of people and of course Steve and Jill,” Telfer said.
“But they let all this happen and they will know it.”
Is 169, or a few more, the limit?
“We like to set new goals and I think a 200-win season in the next 24 months is not impossible,” he suggests.
“We are thinking about racing more of the team, perhaps 75 percent, in the South Island because there are so many racing opportunities.
“There are meetings there that we haven’t been to this year, but maybe next year.”
Team Telfer would only need one winner at most South Island midweekers which they often ignored this year to have a real shot at 200 wins on the season.
And that would put Mark Walker’s overall New Zealand record for a horse trainer of 203 wins into play in 2023.
For full race results, click here
Through Michael Guerinfor Harness Racing New Zealand
#Team #Telfer #breaks #30yearold #training #record