Flemington trainer Claire Patterson celebrates metropolitan first with stable star
Claire Patterson celebrated a breakout moment at Caulfield on Wednesday when Blaze Away had her in the winner’s stall at a metropolitan venue for the first time.
The Flemington trainer teamed with Lachlan King to get the star of her six-horse stable home in the $50,000 The Big Screen Company Handicap (1100m) on The Heath track.
The watershed win was just her sixth as a trainer and Patterson could barely believe it.
“I’m shaking, it’s so good,” Patterson said minutes after the race.
“I think I went a bit shrill at one point, but it was good.”
Patterson is the wife of renowned Flemington horseman and clerk of the course, Shane Patterson, whom she married after heading to Australia for what was meant to be a 12-month stint in 2000.
Patterson got her trainer’s licence in the 2019/20 season and only had a handful runners across her first five seasons but has trained three winners in each of the past two racing years.
She has Blaze Away’s part-owner Greg Harris to thank for experiencing moments like Wednesday’s.
“Blaze’s owner, Greg Harris, he came up and said do you want to train some horses and I thought he was having a laugh,” Patterson said.
“But I went, ‘ah, OK’ and here we are.”
King made use of the inside barrier to position Blaze Away ($8.50) behind the leaders settling and powered through along the inside to go on and score by one length from Imperatriz’s younger half-brother I’mateez ($12).
King has ridden all but one of Patterson’s winners and was thrilled to play his part in the milestone win.
“I’ve been riding for Claire for as long as I can remember and for the first two or three seasons we were just trying to get a winner, realistically,” King said.
“But her last year has been really good and we’ve had a lot of luck the last few months.
“It’s a great family and I’m really happy to ride a winner for her.”
