Abbey Vidovich and Kim Prentice with Franco Ecuador after their win Photo by Nanny Moore
Abbey Vidovich may have just made her driving debut, but she didn’t have long to wait for that sacred first win, with the 18-year-old saluting at just her fifth attempt on board the $1.80 favourite Franco Ecuador NZ yesterday at Pinjarra.
Trained by Kim Prentice, he didn’t have too many instructions for Vidovich before she went out on the eight-time winning seven-year-old, and after finding themselves in the one-out-one-back position over the 1177m Lightning Lap quick trip at Pinjarra, it was all over when she pulled out with around 200m to go.
“As soon as I pulled him out, I barely had to ask him, he just went, up the straight I pulled the plugs, and he just went from there.
“I kind of had no doubt he will get there in the end.”
The win was fitting as Vidovich made her track work debut when working for Kim Prentice just over a year ago on-board Jimmy Rocks.
A Coolup local, Vidovich confessed that as a child she was actually quite scared of horses, but at around 12 or 13 she was exposed to the standardbreds when she did weekend stable work for Dean Miller, eventually having her first sit in the cart around two years ago, which was quite eventful for the then young teen.
“I started to help Dean (Miller) and I realised they weren’t too bad, from there I fell in love with them and the rest is history.
“The first horse I jogged in the cart actually took off on me.”
Vidovich took on her first horse in 2019, a retired standardbred by the name of Terraforce who was trained by Graham Cox and retired in November 2019 after a long and relatively successful career saw him race 128 times for 11 wins and 25 placings and over $95,000 in stakes.
Abbey went on to learn to ride on her beloved ‘Trevor’ who she still has today.
After making the decision to get her driving licence, Abbey made her debut at trials at Pinjarra earlier in the year.
“Aldo (Cortopassi) has been really helpful, and Dean and Kim (Prentice) have helped me out a lot, and everyone out there, they were congratulating me, which was good.”
Abbey will be out for the next couple of weeks due to surgery but made special mention that she is loving every minute of the ride.
Ashleigh Paikos
