TAYLA French's association with Betternbetter has emerged as one of the Central harness racing region's great double acts.
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The Heathcote reinswoman has notched up three-straight wins behind the Keith Cotchin-trained pacer, with the promise of more to come following another convincing performance at Lord's Raceway on Tuesday night.
Betternbetter joined fellow Tuesday winners Lola Devereaux and Gobsmacked as the first three horses to notch up a trio of wins at Bendigo since the move to regional racing.
French rated the four-year-old gelding as certainly one of the best horses she had driven.
"He is just absolutely flying and, as his name says, he is definitely getting better and better every race I have driven him," she said.
"He went through a pretty tough time, he was a top two and three-year-old, but unfortunately felt quite ill.
"Obviously the owners and Keith have put a lot of money and time in him to get him back to the track and he is just outdoing himself.
"When a horse goes through something like that and is pretty much on their death-bed, you don't expect them to hit the race track like he has."
Betternbetter's three wins followed a month-and-a-half long campaign, which despite not resulting in any wins in four starts, certainly did not displease his trainer.
French was confident the gelding could again make his presence felt in bigger races outside of Bendigo once racing returned to normal.
"You can't have many plans at the moment with what's going on, but sitting behind him and feeling the reins, he has definitely got the ability to be racing down there (at Melton) against the metro horses," she said.
A great night for French included a win on her father Terry's horse Joeys Hangover.
The five-year-old gelding notched his sixth career win and third this year in a welcome return to form for the stable.
"I was pretty fortunate, I always wanted to go forward on him," French said.
"Dad didn't give him much hope last night, but when you get to control the tempo of the race and not having much pressure on him worked in our favour.
"It was like a walk in the park for the first two quarters, but the last two quarters really heated up.
"He battled on good and ripped home in a 27 quarter that we didn't think we had him.
"That's a real positive for him for the future."
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