Gore trainer Ellis Winsloe (62) was in the thick of the action at the Omakau Races yesterday as one of his horses, Point Score, won race 2, and another, Knutquacker, placed fourth in race 5.
Mr Winsloe has had a total of 168 wins during his 20-year career as a trainer.
Watching from the side was Mr Winsloe’s mother, Lesley Winsloe (86), who knows the gallops well.
"[Ellis] is a great worker," she said.
Her father, Fred Ellis, was a leading horse jockey from Invercargill and she was part of the family business by the time she had left school.
"My father and his family were very successful jockeys ... They were champion jockeys of New Zealand," Mrs Winsloe said.
Her parents had also travelled by boat with three of their horses to the Melbourne Cup.
An ODT newspaper clipping from 1963 was also dusted off yesterday featuring her late husband, Ted Winsloe, celebrating his horse Baalbeck’s Moran Memorial Cup win in Omakau.
"I have all the scrapbooks, which I collect," she said.
The horse was jointly owned by son Ellis, who was named after his grandfather and established himself as a successful jockey before taking over the family business as a trainer once his parents had retired.
Mrs Winsloe said the longtime involvement in racing and training gallops was "all they had known".
"You’re brought up with them.
"You get to love them. It was our living."
