Narrabri-owned pacer Kid Montana races to fifth Albion Park track victory

Narrabri-owned pacer Kid Montana secured his fifth victory in just nine starts at the Albion Park Paceway with a 7.1-metre victory on Saturday night.

Albion Park Harness Racing Club is the leading metropolitan race club in Queensland and will now be the track of choice, for the next few weeks at least, for Kid Montana which is currently being trained by Queensland’s Lola Weidemann.

The five-year-old gelding is owned by Narrabri’s Nathan and Charles Dicks, Peter, Chris and Garry Shepherdson and Neil Drysdale.

On Saturday he raced to glory in the second race of the evening at Albion Park which was the 1660-metre Garrards Horse and Hound Band Two/Band Four Pace.

He was driven to the comfortable victory by Weidemann after starting from the number eight barrier behind pole position as the race’s $1.90 favourite.

Within a matter of seconds after the race began Kid Montana had stormed past three of the front line starters into fourth place.

When the bell sounded with a lap left to run Kid Montana was third and he quickly moved into second position, running in the death outside the Chris Frisby-trained, Anthony Frisby-driven leader Holy Camp Clive.

With 450 metres left to run Kid Montana gained the lead then he charged home fastest to secure the 7.1-metre victory from the Pete McMullen-driven Maywyns Best which placed second for trainer Graham Dwyer.

Kid Montana won the race with a mile rate of 1:51.4, just one second off the track’s 1:50.4 record for 1660-metre races.

Part owner and former trainer Peter Shepherdson told The Courier he was really impressed with Kid Montana’s run on Saturday night.

“He had to do all the work because he was sitting out in the death,” Shepherdson said.

“[Weidemann] gave him a couple of little smacks on the bum with the reign, not with the whip, and he just ran away with it.

“It was about two seconds off his quickest time.

“It was an impressive win and it was enough for us to think ‘maybe he’s better than what we really thought he was’.

“He’ll have to look at some bigger races now.”

Kid Montana earned $7639 in prizemoney for the win which took his lifetime stakes to $132,632.

The victory was his eighth this season in 20 starts and his 25th in 68 total starts to go with a combined 18 second-placed and third-placed finishes.