By Hayley Wildes
The weekend got off to a memorable start for Nar Nar Goon-based horse trainer Charlotte Littlefield, who scored her first city win at Flemington on Saturday.
But the celebrations soon escalated – as she finished the weekend with four winners at four different venues.
The third of those – in her new home track at Racing.com Park in Tynong – was emotion-charged, with owner Matt Strickland battling MND.
The dominant two days is proof that Hayfields Racing – led by Littlefield – is on the rise.
Littlefield admitted that she’d joked on Friday about winning multiple races over the weekend, but for it to happen the way it did had her in disbelief.
“We certainly weren’t thinking we were going to come out with four wins,” she said.
“There are just so many variables so you can’t ever be too confident and the industry is so up and down.”
Littlefield’s first win came on Saturday morning in the first race at Flemington when Miss Mandito overcame race favourite El Questro. Her first city winner was a dream start to the weekend.
“As a trainer, it’s something you aim for – the big stage,” she said.
“It was a brilliant feeling. You have dreams of winning a city race and for it to happen on one of Flemington’s biggest winter days was amazing.”
Whilst that win was a monumental moment in Littlefield’s three-year training career, shortly after – whilst in the winners room at Flemington – she would sit down to watch Melodeon race at Echuca.
Just as the race was about to start, about 30 people flooded into the room, so Littlefield went outside to watch the race in solitude.
Melodeon swept the field to win by 1.5 lengths.
“You go from one high to another and I just took myself off into a little quiet corner for about 10-15 minutes to let it sink in for a little bit and ignored my phone,” she said.
“It was just unbelievable, it was one of those days where you walk around in a bit of a daze and it still hasn’t sunk in properly.”
The team partied hard on Saturday night and deservedly so.
“We had a magnum of champagne that was being kept on ice by a friend of ours for when we got a city win. We popped that open and had a pretty big night on Saturday, considering we don’t usually make it past 9pm,” she said with a laugh.
Little did she know that Sunday would call for even more celebrations.
Seabeat would get up at Pakenham, before Hello My Friend came roaring home at Warrnambool to cap off an extraordinary weekend.
Seabeat’s win was extra special, considering owner Matt Strickland – who suffers from motor neuron disease – and his family were there to revel in the win.
“Matt’s got MND and he’s got a relatively young family,” she said.
“It’s a pretty tough disease to look down the barrel at, so just to get that family photo with the horse was brilliant and now our next aim is to get a city win for the horse.”
Littlefield – who has an equestrian background – takes pride in being a female trainer, doing things her own way and treating each horse with unrivalled respect and care.
“We want to show that women trainers are able to compete against the men in a male dominated industry,” she said.
“You can train horses as a female and you can train from paddocks ethically and sustainably.
“We limit what we give our horses in terms of pain relief – we try to do it all naturally as much as possible with registered products and we want to give these horses a life after racing.”
She also credits the team around her at Hayfields Racing.
“[The team is] the biggest thing,” she said.
“I started out on my own with just two horses and from that we grew and came here because we got too big and needed our own space.
“It took a while to get the right team together, but we’re here now.”
