FORMER champion Tasmanian pacer Halyer passed away of old age last month but his memory will live on through his owners’ decision to provide a recognition award each year at the annual meeting at St Marys.
Ana and Eric Hayes owned Halyer for the last 14 of his retirement years and before he died the family provided for a trophy to be presented to a novice driver at the St Marys annual meeting and this was the fifth time the award has been presented.
Halyer was owned and raced by the father and son combination of Don and Dean Cooper who had the pleasure of watching their star win his way into the hearts of harness racing fans around Australia and in particular Tasmania.
On Easter Saturday Dean Cooper, who is the chairman of the board of Tasracing, the state’s governing body of all racing, travelled to St Marys to present the 2017 award to novice driver Brady Woods Tasracing.
“It is an honour to receive the Halyer Award because from what I’ve been told he was a fantastic horse.”
“This is the third time I’ve been given this award and it is great that the connections of the great horse wanted to establish the award in his honour,” Woods said.
“Halyer was a great horse to my father and I and we thank the Hayes family for initiating this award,” Cooper said.
Halyer was a great racehorse who greeted the starter 70 times for 32 wins and 22 minor placings for over $340,000 in stakes.
He broke two minutes every season he raced, notching a 1.59.7 rate as a two year old and at three he clocked 1.58.3 in an open class race over 1609 metres in Launceston in February 1990.