Ebony Turner has developed a profile as an up-and-coming trainer in the deep south and her talents are now being recognised by outside owners.
The Riverton horsewoman scored plenty of success last season with her own horses, primarily led by Drakaina, who won two of her five starts for Turner, including the Listed NZB Airfreight Stakes (1400m), and was also runner-up in the Listed Dunedin Guineas.
Drakaina was subsequently sold to Bob Peters in Perth, but Turner’s talents haven’t gone unnoticed and in the last couple of months she has been entrusted with outside horses for the first time.
One of those horses is Monte Civetta, who was sent south from Byerley Park trainers Shaun and Emma Clotworthy, and Turner scored immediate success with the mare last month when taking out a 1400m maiden in her southern debut at Oamaru.
“She is my first outside horse, so that was pretty cool to get a win straight off the bat,” Turner said.
“Kelvin Tyler (trainer) has a lot of horses for Terry Lines (part-owner) and Kelvin put in a good word for me and Terry thought he would take a chance and sent me one, and now he has sent me another one, which is pretty exciting.
“I knew Terry when I worked for Kelvin, so it is cool that he is my first owner, the first of many hopefully. The support from Shaun and Emma Clotworthy, through Terry, has been great as well.”
Monte Civetta will return to Oamaru on Friday where she will attempt to make it back-to-back wins in the Oamaru Scaffoling (1600m).
“I was really proud of her (win), she dug deep,” Turner said. “She has grown another leg since that win, so I am hoping for a good, tough effort on Friday.
“I was gutted to see that it is the last race of the day, so the track is going to be all chopped up. We have got Yogesh (Atchamah, apprentice jockey) on and he is a lovely, patient rider.
“We will basically do what we did last time and let her find her feet, settle her and hopefully she can come over the top of them again.”
Turner will also head to Oamaru with two other contenders, De Russian Rocket in the Barry Rooney Memorial (1400m) and The Advisor in the Drummond & Etheridge (1400m).
“De Russian Rocket is going out on the end of his prep, so it is pretty much just give him this run and see how he comes through it,” Turner said. “I can’t complain about his work, it has been really good.
“Terry Moseley is on him, they have teamed up before. We will hopefully ride him a bit quieter this time. I got him ridden handy last time, which didn’t work out, so we live and learn.
“The Advisor has had a long time between runs, so it is pretty much a starting point again for her. She is working the best she has, but she is out of her grade against some pretty nice horses. I would just like to see her hit the line strong.”