Grand Voyage's career to be celebrated at 2021 Boort Cup

Club president John Campbell said a highlight of the club's meeting on Sunday, February 28, would be a tribute to the 1910s and 1920s era Hall of Fame trotter Grand Voyage.

Trained and driven throughout his career by Paddy Glasheen, from the famous Belmont Stud Farm at Huntly, Grand Voyage was widely regarded as the greatest trotter of his era in Australasia and renowned for his winning exploits against the faster pacers.

As a six-year-old in 1921, he made history by becoming the very first winner of the Boort Pacing Cup, then run over one and a half miles, for a prize of 50 pounds (or 2021 equivalent of $3700).

Remarkably, it was the first of two wins on the day for Glasheen and his star, after they partnered to win the nine furlongs flying, which carried prize money of 30 pounds.

Campbell believed there was no more fitting way to mark the cup's 100th anniversary than with a salute to the career of its first winner Grand Voyage.

"He was an all-time great, who won 44 races," Campbell said.

"He won twice on (Boort) Cup day in 1921. In the shorter race - the first race of the day - he was off 180 yards, odds-on and he won and then he raced in the pacer's cup.

"He had to race against the pacers a lot as he was too heavily handicapped in trotters' races.

"He raced off 280 yards in the cup, as odds-on favourite, and he won that too."

Grand Voyage, who claimed race wins on both sides of the Tasman throughout his 10-year career, also won the original Bendigo Cup at the Bendigo Jockey Club track in Epsom in 1924.

He was inducted into the Victorian Harness Racing Hall of Fame in 2010.

Many of the descendants of Paddy Glasheen will be on-course for the cup day celebrations at Boort, including his grandson, Father Brian Glasheen, well known to most as the 'pacing priest'.

"They used to call Paddy 'The Prince of Reinsmen'. He was a Buckrabanyule boy and was on the Boort committee back in those times," Campbell said.

"We've actually got the sulky Grand Voyage had on him that day and for most of his career coming to the meeting."

The sulky is now housed at the Bendigo Harness Racing Club's history and memorabilia collection at Lord's Raceway.

In addition, a set of driver's colours in Grand Voyage's blue with red sleeves and green cap are being made by Bendigo's Roma Pocock, and will be worn by one of the drivers in the 2021 Cup.

Foaled in 1916 and originally named Bonnie Voyage, before a change to avoid a clash of names with a New South Wales horse, Grand Voyage served early notice of a bright career on the track with his win in the Futurity Stakes of 500 sovereigns, the main Victorian classic for two-year-olds, run at the Richmond (Melbourne) track.

Eight more wins against trotters followed at Rochester, Richmond, Boort and Charlton.

Then as a rising five-year-old, he defeated the hoppled pacers for the first time at the Kyneton racecourse, a feat he would repeat often throughout his career.

Among the highlights of his career were his win at the Royal Agricultural Show at the Melbourne Showgrounds, when he set a mile record of 2:16.3 after staging an epic battle with the quality pacer Sarilla - a winner of 23 races at Richmond - and his victory in the 1922 Otahuhu Cup, then worth 1000 Sovereigns (approximately $71,000), against New Zealand's best pacers from 48 yards in a race record 4:32.3.

Seventeen of the well-travelled Grand Voyage's wins were at the former Richmond track, off Bridge Road, in Melbourne.

His record elsewhere included six victories at Elmore; five at Goornong; four at Epping (Harold Park) in New South Wales; three apiece at Boort, Bendigo and Kyneton; two at Rochester; and one each at Charlton, Inglewood, Ballarat and Otahuhu in New Zealand.

Have you signed up to the Bendigo Advertiser's daily newsletter and breaking news emails? You can register below and make sure you are up to date with everything that's happening in central Victoria.