Gath Snares Third Title

CATCH A WAVE - Kate Gath. Photo by Club Menangle.

FRESH from snaring her third and most satisfying Victorian Metropolitan Drivers’ crown, star driver Kate Gath has her sights set on another major scalp.

Gath fended-off arch-rival and defending champion Mark Pitt to secure the title by three wins (54 wins to 51) at Melton Saturady night.

It followed her title wins in 2020 and ’21 and Gath one of only two females to have won the premiership. Kerryn Manning is the other.

Now Gath’s focus turns to the pending return of the best pacer she’s driven, her own stable star Catch A Wave.

The brilliant rising five-year-old’s major target is a defence of the Miracle Mile crown he won in March at Menangle.

Gath’s husband and Catch A Wave’s trainer, Andy Gath, revealed the Group 1 Hunter Cup was only a probable not definite target on February 3.

“We’re about a week behind where we’d like to be because he had a hoof abscess. He’s back fast working now, but we don’t have to go to the Hunter Cup,” he said.

“We haven’t decided where or when he’ll resume yet, but an option is a (1200m) heat of the Mercury80 series at Melton (January 19).

“He won’t go to those country cups like Bendigo, Shepparton or Ballarat.”

Catch A Wave, who boasts 19 wins from 30 starts and almost $1.3 million in earnings, didn’t seem at his best last campaign.

His eight starts netted just two wins, but it was only his monstrous second in the Victoria Cup which showed the sort of form he did in his Miracle Mile-winning campaign at the start of the year.

“He seems to have come back well, but we’ve only just started fast working him so it’s too early to really tell,” Andy Gath said.

On her premiership win, Kate Gath said beating Pitt, who does the bulk of the driving for premier stable Emma Stewart, was an unexpected surprise.

“I feel like I’ve really had to earn it this year and I honestly didn’t think I had a chance at the start of the season,” she said.

“It was exciting to come down to the last meeting of the season and luck went my way.”

In other news, Victoria’s dual Inter Dominion winning trotter Just Believe is having a short break and may not race again before defending his Great Southern Star crown at Melton on February 3.

“He’ll run the week before it, or go straight into the Great Southern Star,” trainer Jess Tubbs said.

Looking further ahead, Tubbs said a decision between returning to Sweden or focusing on the new slot race in New Zealand would not be made until after the Great Southern Star.

·       Adam Hamilton is a paid contributor writing on harness for News Corp.