Just watched the Vicbred 3YO final for colts and geldings and I just had to retrieve this snippet from a post the other day regarding amateur drivers. Fair dinkum - 42 lead time, just insane
There is a distinct lack of professionalism in Harness Racing, predominately by trainers in who drives their horses but surely the governing bodies should introduce a mandate that all drivers at Metro grade meetings must adhere to a certain qualification criteria. If we look at the fields for this Friday night at Melton which has a Group 1 and 3 other group races on the program then the following all stand out to me - Joanne Taylor, Clinton McSwain, Stephen Cleave, Kerry Clarke, Geoffrey Allen, Mal Whiteford, Alex Douglas, Paul Paton, Kevin Ford, Juanita Breen and Paul Davies. Could probably even add Graeme Lang to that list as rarely drives nowadays but I could imagine the commotion that would cause which in itself is half the problem in that people will point to things he did 30 years ago instead of making the hard (and correct) decision based on what needs to be done today!!!
The list named there simply do not drive in enough races to be in receipt of a Metro licence in my opinion and yet it happens week in, week out and you can bet your bottom dollar that one of them will ruin a race this week. To further magnify the issue this week, a couple are listed to drive in Group races!!!
Yep, they ruined the group 1 race, who were the 2 drivers going with the fav in that insane lead time - you guessed it, Mal Whiteford and Alex Douglas
