Veronica Bennellick - new to the game 

Veronica Bennellick’s name stands out in the racebook because she’s a much-needed new face in the sport.

The thirty three year old lives in Feilding on a 28-acre family farm with her partner Michael Hay and their five year old son Mason. And this is her first season of training.

Veronica has been around horses all her life but harness racing was not in the equation when she was younger.

She went to pony club every weekend from the age of five until high school, forming a special relationship with a pony called ‘Little Angel’ which she’s had for twenty two years.

“I got her when she was half broken in. I ended up taking her to pony club all the time and we accomplished so much together. Back in 2003 we won the Horse and Pony Nationals. I tried so many times to get there and it was my first time, so winning it was quite special. We used to compete up to a metre fifteen show jumping, eventing to pre-novice level and mounted games,” she said.

Sadly that relationship is coming to an end as Little Angel’s battle with grass staggers is getting worse.

“Even though we maintain her diet, her seizures have got worst. She had one the other night and I said to Mike that I couldn’t let her be like that any longer.”

From a young age Veronica was also involved in the horse trekking business.

Her late mother Sue Allomes who passed away two years ago ran a successful trekking business at Ohakune for thirty odd years.

“We used to have a lot of woofers come in to look after the horses and do the work while we looked after the accommodation and food. When Covid hit we struggled to get woofers in from overseas. I think we had over 10,000 woofers through and some of them have married my brothers and sisters and are now family.”

After leaving school Veronica worked for a few galloping trainers, including John Mason in Tokoroa.

“I rode trackwork for John and was going to races.”

Some had thoughts of her becoming a jockey.

“When I was getting my trackwork licence I was working for John) they tried to get me to get one but I didn’t feel as though I wanted to. The year before that I was in a breaking in stable for gallopers in Bulls and I broke my jaw on one. The following year a horse I was riding in a pre-race gallop had a heart attack and I got knocked out and broke both wrists and a collarbone. I thought I’d take a step back and get myself on my feet.”

Bennellick got her start in standardbreds while working for Scott Dickson and Lydia Pickford.

“The first thing they asked was whether I’d ever geared up a harness horse. I told them I’d never been that close to one apart from having standardbreds as hacks. I learned from them, then I met my partner Michael Hay.”

The first horses she drove in trackwork at the Dickson stable were Marshall Star (Badlands Hanover) and Grey Skies (McArdle).

“They’re now my hacks and sitting in my paddock at home.”

Michael is the son of Ashburton trainer John Hay and after ten years away from driving, he returned to the cart in 2024. This season he’s driven thirteen winners from eighty one drives, his best season as an open driver.

Altogether, Hay has driven 135 winners. His first came at Addington in 1999 when he won with Franco Jack trained by his father. His biggest winner was Houdini Star in the 2006 Hambletonian.

“I told him he should get back into the driving. He did and was helping Tracy Cadwallader. So I went to the track in the mornings, got a couple of horses myself and that’s how it started.”

The couple have three horses in work and juggle harness racing around full-time work.

Veronica is the branch manager of Maneline in Palmerston North while Michael is a builder during the week and a farrier at the weekends.

“Mike and I travel into Manawatu Raceway every morning and work the horses.”

The three horses they have in work are Cee Whatabet (Betting Line), Artistic Rock (Johny Rock) and Never Wrong (Johny Rock).

“I can see Cee Whatabet as being my first winner. I’m quite privileged that Mike’s Dad sent him up to us. Having my first start with him was quite nerve wracking, but I’m getting less nervous.”

Cee Whatabet has had twelve starts for four second and two thirds.

Artistic Rock is a three start maidener and is out of Artistic Jewel, a Christian Cullen mare out of a daughter of Under Cover Lover. Never Wrong, a five year old gelding is out of Tiz Armazing making him a half-brother to Storm Prince (5).

“A family member of mine reached out because I was breaking in a few standardbreds to saddle and finding them homes. I thought I would go and pick them up from Dannevirke. It took two hours to get them loaded up and home. The more we dug into the horses we couldn’t find out any of their history on whether they’d been in the cart or not. We ended up ringing Pinelea Farms (Canterbury) and they said we could have them, because they hadn’t even been broken in. We broke them in and got them qualified. Mike did all the hard work.”

The recently released Project Stamina is recommending that their local track the Manawatu Raceway be one of the harness tracks that closes. Bennellick hopes it’s not.

“They’ve done a lot of work to it with the new surface (track) and lights. They’re financially stable. It’s a great track to work on, lovely people and I’d like to keep it going because they’ve all been quite supportive of me around getting my licence.”

And when Veronica’s first winner salutes the judge, the racing colours will be familiar to a lot of older harness racing followers in Mid Canterbury.  Michael’s grandfather Cecil Hay used them when he trained between 1954 and 2006.

“Mike always liked them so we are so grateful for them to have been passed on.”

by Bruce Stewart, for Harnesslink