By Brett Rail
Tamborine trainer Richard Hutchinson has enjoyed a great run of success with his small
team and, in the 2017/18 season, achieved a career best by training 15 winners.
Taking the bull by the horns when enhanced racing opportunities for grass
roots participants were announced, Hutchinson looked for a couple of horses
to aim towards the Aspirational races and Marburg To Albion Series.
One of the horses Hutchinson was able to secure was former Victorian mare
Grinvil, who has proved a great find. Picked up for a bargain price the tough mare has
won eight races in Queensland besides her 10 Albion Park placings, including a career
best 1:53:3 win on September 10 at the Breakfast Creek circuit.
With just five racehorses in work Hutchinson won races with all five horses
last season including Im Rolling Stoned (three wins and Marburg To Albion Final),
Diabolo Star (two wins and a Perseverance Pace) Cheyenne Warrior (two wins), Caesars
Astrum (one win) and Grinvil (seven wins including an Aspirational Pace).
July 28 was also a special moment in Hutchinson’s training career, when he
achieved not only his first Albion Park double, but the first double in his career with
Grinvil and Diabolo Star.
Diabolo Star’s win that night was particularly satisfying, as this
was a horse Hutchinson had bred who had soundness issues in his early career and has
been nursed back to health and rewarded with a Saturday night win.
Hutchinson, a respected breeder and former studmaster who stood the successful
sires such as Jaguar Spur and Jeremy Laurence, has set a great example for other
hobbyists and owner/trainers on what can be achieved with a little aspiration.