It was quite fitting Gavin Lang and Dexter Dunn reached career milestones on the same weekend.
While Dunn has re-written all the record books in NZ, Lang is widely regarded as the best driver Australia has seen. Although, the Chris Alford fans might argue the toss on that one.
Lang, 58, landed his 6000th career win in typically patience and sublime style on outsider, the Emma Stewart-trained Tell Me Tales, in the Group 1 Vicbred final for 3YO fillies at Melton last night.
It came just a few months after Alford became the first driver in this part of the world to hit 6000 career wins.
“These colours have been very good to me for a lot of years now,” Lang said. “I’m quite happy to achieve this tonight, especially for these guys. 6000 wins, I’m nearly 60 years that’s only 100 a year so it’s not much when you add it up like that,” Lang told harness.org,.au.
While Lang has been associated with so many great stables over his stellar career, it has been Stewart and co-trainer Clayton Tonkin who have been his backbone in recent times.
So much so, it was loyalty to Stewart and Tonkin which saw Lang surrender the drive on Hectorjayjay ahead of last year’s Perth Inter Dominion.
The Vicbred 3YO fillies’ final was billed as a match-race between arch-rivals Petacular and Miss Graceland.
Miss Graceland won the first battle by holding the lead, but soon after started to overrace badly for driver Chris Alford.
Given Petacular was stuck parked as Miss Graceland charged along in slick splits in front, she too was a victim of the leader’s headstrong, self-destructive mindset.
Miss Graceland stopped on the final bend, Petacular zoomed clear and looked set to win and then along came Lang on Tell Me Tales.
As hard as a very brave Petacular tried to lift, Tell Me Tales fresh legs were too much and snatched victory by 1.2m in a 1min56.5sec mile rate for 2240m.
