Ballarat trainer Emma Stewart is the latest recipient of the most prestigious award for females in Victorian harness racing.
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Stewart received the Pearl Kelly Award at the Gordon Rothacker Medal at Crown Palladium on Sunday night.
The award recognises the outstanding contribution to or achievement within the sport by a woman.
It is named in honour of the Australia’s first reinswoman, who was licensed in 1916.
Stewart has risen to the top of Victoria training ranks over the past decade and in partnership with Clayton Tonkin operates a newly established training complex at Cardigan.
Stewart paid tribute to the support OF Tonkin, as well as their parents, staff and owners.
She began her career about 15 years ago working for champion trainer Peter Manning at Great Western, when she trained her first pacer Katies Secret to 26 wins.
Stewart mixes caring for her young daughter Willow with overseeing her stable.
Stewart was one of the stars of the awards night, when she was also named Victorian trainer of the year after taking out the 2016-17 Victorian statewide and metropolitan premierships for a third time.
She had 206 wins in Victoria – the first time she has topped 200 on Victorian tracks in a season.
Stewart also trained four of the Victorian horse of the year category winners: 2yo pacing filly Nostra Villa, 2yo pacing colt/gelding Poster Boy, 3yo entire/gelding Our Little General and 4yo mare Heavens Trend.
The Ballarat trots community success did not stop there.
Ballarat and District Trotting Club was named the Victorian club of the year – the first time all clubs statewide have been eligible for the one award.
The BDTC had previously won the more than 16 race meetings category 10 times.
Trainers Michael Stanley (Burrumbeet) and Anton Golino (Cardigan) also had stable members earn horse of the year honours.
Petacular added another accolade by being named the 3yo pacing filly of the year.
This completes a clean sweep of national and state horse of the year awards in her 2yo and 3yo seasons.
Gollino’s Une Belle Allure was named 3yo trotting filly of the year – a category in which the Golino stable had all three finalists.
Former Ballarat-based trainer-driver Jim O’Sullivan received the highest honour of the event, the Gordon Rothacker Medal.
Now living and still training a small team in Bendigo, O’Sullivan, 71, lived in Ballarat from 1996 to 2003.
He is originally from NZ, and made his first Australian home in Queensland.
