Trainer breaks 30-year drought

A DROUGHT spanning almost three decades was broken at Globe Derby last Saturday night.

Capturing the South Australia Sires' Classic with Jades Hope, Robert Shepherd registered his first win since 1995.

To be more precise, Shepherd's previous success was at his home track in Mount Gambier with Full A Dreams on February 11, 1995.

During the dry spell Shepherd took a 16-year break to concentrate on his family.

"It's been a long time since I got a winner," Shepherd said. "The last one was when I trained and drove Full A Dreams to win in early 1995.

"I stopped training in 1999 as I got married and had kids and so on, but I kept an interest in the sport by helping Ray Lattin around the stable.

"I decided to get back into training during the 2015/16 season and have been pottering along since."

Leading throughout from barrier two, Jades Hope was never fully extended on her way to an eight-metre win from Agirl With Secrets, which enjoyed the run of the race from the pole.

Ruthless Offender, which sat outside the pacemaker during the final lap, was a head away third.

Rating a modest 2:05.9 over 1800 metres, Jades Hope broke her maiden at her fifth start.

"I was reasonably confident with her before the race, and once she got an easy time of it in front, I felt she had them covered," Shepherd said.

"She has always shown a bit of potential and been easy to do anything with.

"I'll give her a month to six weeks off now and then bring her up slowly to race again around March or April."