Age shall not weary our Arthur

– Bridget Brady
AT 88, Narre Warren North trainer Arthur Fullwood is the Bart Cummings of the harness racing world.
And age is not the only parallel to the historic thoroughbred trainer, as Mr Fullwood has also enjoyed success this year, training Veranjee as Cranbourne’s 2007-2208 Horse of the Year.
Mr Fullwood breeds most of his small but select team of horses and trains them at his property.
He says he will enter Veranjee in next weekend’s Cranbourne Pacing Cup and hopes it will get a run.
Mr Fullwood said Veranjee raced 10 times on his home track during 2007 and 2008 and recorded seven wins, one second and a third.
He keeps an eye on the horses when they are young and watches them grow. This is part of the reason for his success, which includes winning four races in one day at Warragul.
“You only get good results if you’re good to them,” he said.
He said his love affair with horses started when he was 13.
“My father had horses and I used to ride the work horses and go to trials in the early days and ride people’s horses for them. And so it went on from there.”
Mr Fullwood won his first race in Kapunda near Adelaide in 1950 and, instead of getting carried away with the win, said he immediately learnt to not rely on training as a living.
“It has always been a hobby.”
Mr Fullwood said he started his day in the stables at 7am every day of the week and fed the horses, mapped out their programs and supervised their track work.
“You do get weary but that doesn’t take away from your desire to win races so that keeps you going. They (horses) are lovely animals.”
Mr Fullwood said he had put a lot of hard work into training, but the sport was very rewarding.
He said he had no plans to finish his “hobby”.
“I’ll see. Maybe in 15 years I’ll give it away,” he laughed.