Elliott on the Up With First Win
Kaden Elliott with his extremely happy friends and family after his first win. Photo Credit- Photography by Jodie Hallows
Kaden Elliott recorded his first win in the cart on Saturday night at Northam on board the Graham Cox trained Chance Eclipse, with the 21-year-old just five starts into his driving career.
“It was great, definitely made it a bit better being up front. Most of my other drives have been back in the field a bit,”
“I think Pop (Gary Elliott) and Voaks were probably on a bigger high than me.” He joked.
Born into a family of harness racing enthusiasts, there was never any doubt that Kaden would eventually make his way onto the track in one way or another, but Elliott made the decision to get his reinsman’s licence in recent years.
“I have been around the horses all the time just helping out my nan and pops, but never really got too serious with it until two or three years ago when I started to jog a few at home here and there to help out.”
“I ended up getting my c-class licence early last year with a bit of persuasion from pop and a couple of blokes I work with,”
“It was probably always destined considering my dad trained and drove, my pop still trains and used to drive, and my great-grandad use to train and drive as well.”
Making his debut just two weeks ago at his home track of Northam, the junior concession driver didn’t have long to wait for his first victory, with Pinjarra based trainer Graham Cox giving him the steer on board Chance Eclipse in race five. After an indiscretion during the score up, the four-year-old caused a false start at their first attempt, but on his best behaviour for take two, Kaden managed to lead all the way on the gelding to win by 4.1m over the 2190m trip in a mile rate of 2:00:1, giving Chance Eclipse his fifth career win.
“After driving a few it was quite enjoyable, even though a couple of earlier drives finished towards the back of the field, but they were still helpful in terms of gaining more experience,”
“And much more fun and enjoyable tonight, although I didn’t have to do much work, Graham Cox did all the hard work, I just had to sit and steer.”
Making his first appearance at Byford trials on April 7, 2021, Kaden had a few setbacks with his licence, with trials often clashing with football; with his games usually falling on a Sunday and training on Wednesdays, it didn’t work out well with official trials falling on those two days.
“I also work shift work, which made it tough to try and plan what days I’d be available to get to trials, and not to mention the two main horses Pop had in work at the time weren’t the greatest at pacing smoothly and were a bit of trouble at the time, making things a bit harder,”
“But Rob and Craig Abercrombie helped in a huge way at the end of doing my c-class licence, with always having a couple for me to drive at Byford every week without fail for 5-6 weeks, and also Rick and Leeann Lee helping me out with a few as well,”
“The Voaks have been a pretty big support along the way as well.”
With the sad passing of his father Clayton ‘Boof’ Elliott in February 2020, Elliott confirmed his dad was much more than just a support for the horses but a support in the everyday goings of life, always pushing him to get better at whatever he set his mind to.
“In terms of horses, I’ve had quite a few people who have had an influence on me, but mainly Nan and Pop, Maryanne White, and my girlfriend Sara (Grout), who has a horse of her own.”
Ashleigh Paikos