Poor weather caused an early finish to the Derby day card at Healesville but not before last season’s third-placed jockey Leigh Taylor could bag himself a double.
The track was downgraded twice prior to race one and started as a soft 7, but managed to handle the running of three races before further rain caused the meeting’s abandonment.
Taylor took out the first two races, kicking off with Loveofmylife $5 outsider in a field of three, in the opener for Seymour trainer John Heath.
The Ace High mare was unplaced in four runs in New Zealand before crossing the Tasman to join Wangaratta trainer Andrew Dale, for whom she won at Berrigan and Griffith before taking the 2025 Lockhart Cup at picnic level.
She joined Heath in May, missing a place in four runs before spelling. Last Saturday she was first up off a 14-week break.
Taylor’s second winner was less of a surprise as he steered the Dennis Julius-trained Strum to an easy maiden win.
Strum was having start 22, so you had to be a bit forgiving, but this was a real drop in class on his recent assignments and it’s not as if he hadn’t looked like winning a race on the TAB circuit, notching five minor placings, four fourths and four fifths.
The six-year-old is a son of Skyclad, a Rosehill two-year-old winner by Snitzel who covered 100 mares over eight seasons before his death in 2025. Another of his winners is Strum’s stablemate and full sister Banjette, who broke her maiden at Drouin last Boxing Day.
The Marcus O’Connor-trained Overtoux, a daughter of Overshare, won race three, appreciating a drop in class after tackling benchmark 56 company on the TAB circuit in recent runs.
Overtoux, a Leeton maiden winner in April 2025, got veteran rider “Razor” Ray Douglas on the board for the new season.
One of Douglas’s seven winners last season was also for O’Connor at Healesville — Mr Time.