Photo: Trish Dunell
Cambridge junior driver Alicia Harrison began her season in winning fashion on Thursday night when reining home the Steve and Amanda Telfer-trained Mimi E Coco to win over 1700m at Alexandra Park.
The daughter of multiple Group One winner Molly Darling took some solid workout form into her fresh-up assignment and her connections were confident with her chances from the ace draw.
“She is a very smart horse and did it pretty easy,” Harrison said.
“She was going really well and had a bit of fitness under her belt. She came up with the right draw to make it really hard for the others to catch her.
“She is pretty smartly bred and the Telfer’s were pretty confident she could win the race.”
Harrison has been receiving plenty of support from Stonewall Stud of late and she said she was delighted to record their second win of the night.
“I was really happy to kick the season off well for Stonewall Stud,” she said.
“They have been brilliant in helping me out. It is really good to have them along with Arna (Donnelly, employer) behind me heading into the season.
“With a couple of big teams behind me hopefully I can pick up a few wins.”
Harrison has recently returned from the New Zealand Junior Drivers Championship held in Christchurch late last month where she finished third after winning the final heat of the competition behind Prince Teka.
“It was great to come third because I had a bit of bad luck through the series with a couple of scratchings and one didn’t really want to pace,” Harrison said.
“It was really nice to pick up that last win and finish third overall.
“It was a very tight series, so it just showed what a good bunch of young drivers there were. It came down to the wire.”
With one win on the board already this season, Harrison is hoping to quickly add to that tally as she would dearly love to take out the North Island junior driver premiership this term.
“The aim is to win this season’s North Island junior driver premiership, so hopefully I can just stay ahead of them now that I have got one,” she said.
While focusing the majority of her efforts on her driving, Harrison is also hoping to get on the winner’s board this year as a trainer.
She took out her trainer’s license at the start of the season to train her three-year-old filly Shirley Bassey, however, it will be a few months before she is seen on the track.
“She has just gone out this week for a month, so she will be a while away from being seen at the trials,” Harrison said. – Cambridge Raceway
