PAT Haslam achieved a notable milestone yesterday at Hamilton Park when Happy Wanderer gave the Middleham trainer his 600th winner - Flat and jumps combined - in the Robert C Brown Classified Stakes.
Haslam was based at Lambourn in Berkshire when Rooster opened his account in a Newton Abbot hurdle in February 1972, just a few weeks after he first took out a licence.
Haslam, who turned 50 six days ago, was heading for Thirsk races last night but his wife Anne said: ''We have kept a record of the winners and most of them have been on the Flat. It's nice to reach such a total and we have the odd jumper to keep us going in the winter as well.''
Haslam took his tally to 601 when Pet Express Flyer, his twenty-fourth strike of the year, stormed home under Jason Weaver in the qualifier for the Hamilton Park two-year-old series final.
The winning owners, Pet Express Limited of Lytham St Annes, have had 24 winners since they entered racing, 21 with Haslam and three with Jack Berry.
The latter reached his half-century for the year when Beverley Monkey overcame being hampered at the start to land the juvenile claiming event.
Jockey Jimmy Fortune was stood down for two days (June 10-11) after winning the nine-furlong handicap on Peter Calver's Riccarton, a horse named after owner Kenneth MacPherson's birthplace near Kilmarnock.
The West of Scotland restaurateur was on a business engagement as the stewards were finding Fortune guilty of ''using his whip without regard to the horse's stride.''
Donal Nolan took the opening 13-furlong handicap with Lord Advocate, who had been disqualified after winning the corresponding event a year ago.
The Irishman, saddling his first winner of the year and based just a few miles away at Bonkle, said: ''The sample tested positive to something and I can't even remember the name of it. Hopefully, he will be all right this time - as I don't want another #400 fine.''
Ruth Clark, equally at home on the Flat, over hurdles, and between the flags in point-to-pointing, rode Soaked to victory for her grandfather David Chapman in the concluding amateurs' event.
As well as a bottle of champagne, she was presented with horse oats to the value of her own weight.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article