Tom Nally Photo by Pacepix
Tom Nally recently made the move to WA and at this stage he has no plans to leave, with the New Zealand ex pat loving life here in the west.
Originally intending to head to the stables of Gary Hall Snr, his plans suddenly changed when the stable didn’t have enough horses in work to support his employment, but he was soon put in touch with Greg and Skye Bond, and he couldn’t be happier with the placement.
“I love it, it’s a pretty cruisy stable, they’re great people to work for, Skye and Greg, and Deni is good to work for too.”
“I’d like to say she’s taken me under her wing a wee bit and actually taught me quite a lot in the whole six weeks I’ve been here.”
Whilst the decision to move to WA wasn’t entirely his, its not one he’s regretted so far, although the extreme heats here in the west are definitely testing the 22-year-old.
“I would have to say it’s my partner, she’s a nurse, and she wanted to come to WA because she thought it was such a beautiful place and we’ve been here for two months, and I couldn’t agree more with her.”
“I am fine in the mornings, but come lunch time, there’s no point trying to get me to do anything.”
Nally’s involvement in harness racing began at a young age with his grandfather, Vin Nally, breeding horses in New Zealand, with Tom going on to gain his reinsman’s licence at 18-years-old.
“He bred a few horses, and he did a bit of breaking in and when I was about 12 I started helping him out.”
“When I was 16 I left school and helped him out for a year, and then I went and worked for a trainer called Hamish Hunter after that and I stayed there for six years before I came over here.”
Tom Nally drove in 515 races in New Zealand for 28 wins and 71 places, and although his statistics state he’s driven for four years now, Nally spent almost 2 years on the sidelines due to injuries.
“I was a farrier, I was underneath one, one day, and the next day I woke up in hospital with a couple of broken vertebrae and a couple of slipped discs.
“And I just got back from that injury, and I was about to have my first drive and a horse jumped off the truck and landed on my foot and broke my foot.”
The separate injuries saw him sidelined for just over 18 months throughout the four-year period.
Making his debut in WA in the first of the Junior driver races at Pinjarra back on January 13, he has had just the two drives so far, with a last start win on board Machlani, bringing up the 22-year-olds first win in WA, as well as his first metropolitan win here in Perth.
Nally heads to Bunbury on Saturday night, February 1, with two drives on his books for Phil and Daniel Costello, but he’s hopeful that he will start to see an increase in drives as time goes on.
“I’d like to see myself as a driver, so over the next year I’d like to get as many drives as I can and prove to people that I can drive, and then just go from there.”
“I’ve only had two drives over here and my first drive, well that was just horrendous because it was a junior drivers race and I didn’t know what to do, because I don’t think anyone else knew what to do.
“But my drive at GP, it was around senior drivers and it was a more type of a race, we all drove tight, and I feel like over here if you get to the front you don’t really hand up, and you just run your race from there, it’s a lot of front running wins over here compared to at home, you can win from anywhere back at home, over here is just a wee bit different.”
Before heading to WA, Nally spent six months researching and watching races in Perth, analysing the best of WA’s drivers to get a head start before he landed abroad.
“We had been planning this for about six months, to come over, so I thought I’d start watching Perth racing, to try and get used to how they drive.”
“The main drivers I watched was Jnr, Deni, Shannon, just all the top drivers to see how they drove, and it actually helped me a lot to know how they drive and look at who all the best trainers are, and I think I landed in the best stable.”
Tom Nally also heads to Pinjarra to drive Mister Piccolo in race 6 for trainer Jane Steer.
Ashleigh Paikos
