Gollan running out of time for 200 wins this season

By Glenn Davis

Tony Gollan’s resume is littered with records but a new milestone of training 200 winners in a season could be a bridge too far.

Gollan has already claimed his 12th Brisbane trainers’ premiership and the focus is now on the Australian trainers' title where he has 194 wins with just two meetings of the season remaining at Doomben on Wednesday and Ipswich on Thursday.

A product of Toowoomba, Gollan has never climbed the peak to reach 200 wins in a season and if successful it will be an achievement no other Queensland trainer has done.

His best result so far was the 2022-23 season when he trained 194 winners.

Gollan claimed two Group 1s this season with superstar Antino in the Toorak Handicap in Melbourne and Doomben Cup during the Queensland Racing Carnival.

He is also a rugby league tragic.

He’s an avid fan of the Queensland Maroons who often claim underdog status in clashes with NSW, but Gollan believes he’s only a slim hope of reaching the 200 victory mark.

“We’ve had too many seconds in the past few weeks and having Sunday’s Ipswich meeting abandoned hasn’t helped,” Gollan said.

“We’re in the nervous 90’s but we’re probably a million to one to get there with only two meetings left.”

Gollan is set to finish the season in fifth place behind Ciaron Maher in the Australian trainers' premiership with the Annabel and Rob Archibald partnership well clear in fourth.

Irrespective of the final outcome, it’s a huge effort from Gollan considering stables above him in the national premiership battle such as Maher, Chris Waller, the Hayes family and the Archibalds have mega stables across several states.

In the Queensland trainer’s premiership, Gollan has 193 wins and hopes to draw closer to the 200 mark with 13 acceptors at Doomben on Wednesday.

“We’re only in five races at Doomben and there’s Ipswich on Thursday so mathematically we’re still a chance of reaching 200 but it’ll be very tough,” he said.

Gollan believes the stable’s best hopes at Doomben are in the Three-Year-Old Maiden and Two-Year-Old Maiden Plates. 

“We’ve got multiple chances in both the three and two-year-old races and those races look our best chances of getting a winner,” he said.

Gollan has four hopefuls - Imminent Boom, Praise You, Tszyuya and Heroic Rebel (who is an emergency) - in the Three-Year-Old Maiden while first starters Quickzou, Lady Tangalooma and Reconciliate lead the stable charge in the Two-Year-Old Maiden.