Fletcher and Thornley combine to win junior feature

Veteran trainer Fred Fletcher and junior reinsman Sam Thornley combined to win last night’s Darren DeFilippi Memorial at Addington with Royal Gypsy (Royal Aspirations).

After a perfect start Thornley made full use of Royal Gypsy’s handicap advantage and took her straight to the top and stayed out of trouble.

While some of the opposition made mistake Royal Gypsy and Thornley trotted the perfect race going down to the wire to win by three lengths from another front marker Buffy Northstains with the best of the handicap horses One Mhor For Heather seven lengths back in third.

ROYAL GYPSY REPLAY

“She’s sensible, good to do anything with, got a bit of speed but she’s a wee bit weak yet so we’ve taken our time with her. She’s twelve months away yet,” Fletcher said.

Fletcher says Royal Gypsy will have a week off now before she races again.

“I’ll space her races. We won first up with her and doing that in this country is hard because of the handicapping system. The new drop back (system) has helped her and winning a penalty free race like last night is a big help. Buffy Northstains, who followed her around last night, has won fourteen races. When you get a nice young trotter you’ve got to be careful with them.”

The win was Thornley’s 200^th and thirty seven of those have been for Fletcher and of those wins thirty have been with the stock of Royal Aspirations.

“Sam knows her fairly well. He drove her three weeks ago at the trials and we’ve been waiting on this race to come along.”

It was the second time Thornley has won the Darren DeFilippi Memorial. He won it in 2023 driving Light Of The Moon for Robbie Holmes. Fletcher has also won the race twice with Amber Gambler driven by Sam Smolenski winning the junior drivers feature in 2007.

“Sam is very good with the trotters.”

Of the 555 winners Fletcher has trained 283 have been trotters and 51 have been by Royal Aspirations.

“I’ve got nearly all trotters in work. I wouldn’t know how to put hopples on a horse now.”

It was Royal Gypsy’s second win in four starts.

She’s out of CR Commando mare Commander Del whose dam Del’s Hoof N It won seven while her mother Gypsy Del also won seven.

“I bought her (Commander Del) at the sales. The first one out of her was Royal Del who won thirteen for us. She was a funny mare who could trot a bit but was always in season so in the finish I ended up breeding from her knowing that she had the ability and a good heart.”

The winners of eighteen races and New Zealand’s fastest two year old trotter, Royal Aspirations stands at Phoebe Standardbreds at Broadfields in Canterbury. His oldest progeny are seven and in 2022 he served 107 mares so his biggest crop will be two year olds next season.

“Beautiful horse. Probably not the highest speed trotter I’ve had but man he could stay all day. He had a big heart and went 1-56 as a two year old and he raced well after that.”

Royal Del, Sunny Louie and Paris Prince all trained by Fletcher put Royal Aspiration on a pathway to early success.

“I only bred four horses (by Royal Aspirations) to start with and they’ve all won over $100,000. They’re good bread and butter horses, they try hard and they’re slowly getting up to the tighter class races now.”

But Fletcher admits it hard work promoting a colonial stallion.

“It’s a funny old business. They like to pay the big fees for the American sires. They (breeders) don’t really like anything that has raced in New Zealand.”

Fletcher faith in Royal Aspirations is unwavering. One of Royal Aspirations sons Royal Pride has served a handful of mares including Commander Del.

Royal Pride won over 3200 metres in 4-05.6 on Cup Day in 2022.

“On that day he wasn’t quite right and I tried for twelve months to get him back but and I couldn’t get him right. I think he was one of the best trotters I’d had in a long time. It’ll be interesting to see how he comes along.”

Eighty seven year old Fletcher doesn’t train any outside horses these days and currently has fifteen horses in work. All are by Royal Aspirations.

“I’m too old to be putting up with people who wonder why they aren’t winning all the time (laughter).”

Fletcher bought his Weedon’s property twenty years ago.

“Everyone wants to buy it of me for housing but I’ll keep going with this racing team for a bit longer.”

One of the veteran trainers main concerns about the sports he’s spent a lifetime in is the handicap system.

“I can’t see why you should go to a country meeting and get the same amount of points you do at Addington. During the weak races at Addington if you only got two or three points for winning people would be lining up there and running their horses. They’d be getting full fields all the time.”

He says that the breeding numbers are a worry.

“In the old days every farmer had a horse. Nowadays there’d be hardly a farmer with a horse anymore. There’s only a few that own them by themselves and the horses are mainly syndicated. It’s got so expensive to train them.”

Another thing Fletcher is passionate about is harness racing encouraging and supporting more young people to get into and succeed in the sport.

“It’s been a great sport for many years. We need the young ones coming through but they can’t afford to buy land and race horses. I think the clubs should look at opening a few stable areas to help the young ones coming through.”

For complete race results, click here.

by Bruce Stewart, for Harnesslink