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Craig Thornton received a great welcome home gift at Ellerslie on Saturday when Lacustre took out the CLC Pakuranga Hunt Cup (4900m) for trainer Samantha Logan.
Thornton has recently returned from a seven month training stint in China and he was pleased to be trackside on Saturday to watch the horse he formerly trained, and still part-owns, take out the time-honoured race.
“To get home and have him back at Ellerslie and to get the job done it was a pretty special occasion,” he said.
Thornton initially trained the son of Postponed for Westbury Stud Principal Gerry Harvey and pulled together a syndicate to purchase the horse when Harvey indicated he no longer wanted to persevere with Lacustre.
“He was a horse I originally had for Gerry Harvey and Russell Warwick and we won a race with him on the flat over 1900m at Rotorua,” Thornton said.
“He is a horse we have always liked, although he didn’t go as far as we thought he would on the flat.
“They decided they weren’t going to continue with him, so I had a bunch of guys I thought would be suitable owners.
“We put a syndicate together and purchased the horse. He wasn’t a natural jumper and we have had to play around with his jumping a lot and last year we just ran him over hurdles to get his confidence up.
“It has been a long-term project, but he always showed he had the stamina that we were looking for.”
Thornton was full of praise for trainer Samantha Logan after Saturday’s win.
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“She has done an incredible job with this horse,” he said. “He is not the easiest to train. He has a few muscle enzyme problems and she does a fantastic job keeping him fit and sound.”
Thornton, a former jumps jockey, has a strong association with the Great Northern Steeplechase (6400m) and he said he would dearly love to win the Network Visuals-sponsored race at Ellerslie next month with Lacustre.
“It is a race dear to my heart,” Thornton said. “When I was 14-years-old I led in Bean’s Beau and Bryce Waters after they won the Great Northern in 1981.
“That’s when they had the white coats and I was so tiny I had to roll the sleeves up because the coat was too big for me.
“I have been successful in it twice (as a jockey). I won on Brother Bart in 1991 and Amanood Lad in 2014.”
Thornton said he was pleased to return home after a recent training stint in China and is looking forward to starting a new challenge as travelling foreman for Te Akau.
“It was going well up in China, I was there for seven months,” he said. “I didn’t complete the whole 12 month contract, it’s a very difficult lifestyle living up there, but I had initial success.