The 78-year-old horse trainer and schoolbus driver

Doug Gillespie knows how to handle all sorts of horsepower but on Sunday the 78-year-old will hand over his one horsepower version to the experts.

Gillespie has long mixed his schoolbus driving with his passion for breeding and training horses, but at the Timaru Harness Racing Club’s final meeting of the season on Sunday, while he will still prepare his lone starter with his 58 years of training experience, he won’t be in the sulky.

“I drive trials, not race days. I leave that to the experts,” he said, after putting Gliding High through some final preparations for the Winter Cup meeting at Phar Lap Raceway.

“Horses are my life though. I’ll be doing it until I’m in a box.”

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He only trains three horses these days, and Gliding High, which he owns in partnership with his son Lachie, lines up in race 9 of 10 in the club’s final meeting for the season.

“I’m looking for my second win with him, having had seven starts and a couple of placings. It will be the eighth start on Sunday for the 4-year-old, and hopefully on Sunday I’ll win, or even get a place, I’d be happy.

“I rate him really good. I don’t keep duds.

“He’s off 10m, I think he should go well and be in the money. He starts well. At the start he was a bit of a cowboy, but he’s pretty good now. He’s a very good-natured horse this one.”

Gliding High’s sole win was two starts ago at Banks Peninsula on April 10. On Sunday he will be driven once again by Johnny Morrison from Ashburton.

“I’ve won a lot of races,” Gillespie says.

“I’ve won the Timaru Cup twice, and around about 15 years ago I was trainer of the year here, winning the most races from Ōamaru to Geraldine when I was fulltime training.”

Gillespie is showing no sign of slowing down.

“I can’t sit at home. People ask, ‘why do you work, why do you do horses?’ It’s because I’m not one to sit around, and my wife still works.

“I’m up at six in the morning and leave home about seven, go and do the school buses, get here [Phar Lap Raceway] about nine, and by the time I do everything I finish about midday and get a couple of hours’ rest, and then I’ll do a school run again … I do a bit of work for Hilton Haulage as well.

“I’m usually home about 5.30pm … a couple of stubbies, cook tea and the wife gets home about 6pm.”

Gillespie is confident the Timaru club will keep going.

“You’ve got to look on the bright side of life. I hope it keeps going.

“As long as I can, I’ll always be involved.”

Club president Gary Moir’s confidence in the future is similar to Gillespie’s.

“We’ve got good fields, 10 races. We are racing on the all-weather grit track and would love a good crowd,” Moir said.

One feature for the public on Sunday, besides free admission,

is a special race in memory of Jack Phillips, a long-time committee member. His family, including his wife, will be at the meeting. Phillips was on the club’s committee for about 40 years, and was a former president of NZ Trotting Conference.

Moir admits harness racing has declined “a wee bit” in the region, but said they still have a good dozen trainers who use the facilities and there will be a number of local starters on Sunday.

The club has gone through a review process with Harness Racing New Zealand, but no future decisions have been made.

However, the club has lost one race day for 2023-2024.

“The TAB said (there were) too many race meetings that week.

“We are working hard and are hopeful of an extra date for a grass track meeting for us the next season. It has been a long time since they’ve had a grass harness meeting here.

“At this stage it is operations as normal, and we are working hard to make it economical.

“We’ve certainly been told they’re looking at clubs that are a drain on the system. We are lucky that we’ve got additional land that we are trying to work with to utilise and bring income into this place so we are not a drain on the resources.”

Moir said they are keen to encourage younger people, are and looking at how to attract them to the industry and race days, and the recent news on the deal involving the TAB and Britain’s Entain betting is seen by Moir as “great news”.

“It is the best news we’ve had for a long time. It is going to benefit the owners of the horses.

“The stakes should improve, that’s where the problem is at the moment. The stakes are just not supporting the racing.

“The owners are getting disgruntled and leaving the game, it’s not what we want, so if the stakes start to increase then that encourages breeding … then you get owners, and owners fund the whole thing.”

Sunday’s meeting is the fifth and final race date for the season, with the feature race the Temuka Transport Timaru Winter Cup. The first race starts at 12.35pm, with the Winter Cup at 3.31pm. Entry is free.