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By Tony Megahey

For three-decade trainer Lisa Sheppard, the occasion was career-defining and she’ll be grateful for anything remotely like it, returning to town for a Rosehill Gardens TAB $100,000 Class 3, 1500m Highway on Saturday with three-time winner Racketeering ($5.50 on TAB).

Trainer Lisa Sheppard with jockey Jay Ford. Image by Bradley Photographers

The five-year-old homebred Trusting gelding with 59kg for Jason Collett and Grafton-based Lisa, comes off a dominant Coffs win and competitive in tougher grade at Doomben and the Gold Coast.

Way back in September of 2018, Lisa racing for the very first time in the city, won on hallowed ground at Royal Randwick with outsider Gordon’s Leap and she was suddenly a racing revelation.

Since the inception of the Highway series there has been no more remarkable anecdote.

However, it had a daunting beginning as Gordon’s Leap, a notoriously bad traveller, had previously severely injured himself in the float.

Based at distant ‘Port’ a stressed Lisa sought advice for the quickest route to headquarters through city traffic.

They made it safely and were grateful to stay in Happy Clapper territory at Pat Webster’s trackside stables where Gordon’s Leap, played up “shocking”.

However, the powerful homebred sprinter, named after a riding feat by the famous poet Adam Lindsay Gordon, won with a tremendous finish.

The trip home and the welcome were surreal for Lisa. She was inundated with well-wishers and media, including racing great Johnny Tapp.

“I was halfway home when John rang, stored his feature for our family,” Lisa bubbled. “Eventually I went to the Inglis sales, bought the mother of Gordon’s Leap and bred from her.

“This is the first time I’ve been back to Sydney; we lost Gordon’s Leap with colic. So sad I haven’t had the right horse until this gelding, and he’s got ability.

“I’ve had a licence since the 1980s but took extended time off when I had my two children. We lived at Bowral and travelling daily to work horses at Goulburn became too hard.

“We moved to ‘Port’ but with Covid and all it became hard to get trackwork riders, so we relocated again to Grafton.

“Racketeering’s form says he’s up to a Highway but seriously more ability than it shows. Some of his unplaced runs have been enormous with no luck and bad gates.

“And this prep is the first time I’ve had him 100 per cent. He picked up a virus and had suspensory issues.

“I wouldn’t come all this way if I didn’t think he’d be competitive. He generally gets back but drawn in, we’ll try and be closer, he’ll run us a race.”

Racketeering has an admirable record of three wins and six placings from just nine starts.

In another capacity field yet to be finalised, impressive recent winners, Cavanough’s Tidal Rush ($17) and Cody Morgan’s Highlights (James McDonald, $4.40 favourite) have drawn precariously. Tidal Rush was scratched from a wide barrier in a Highway two weeks ago.

View the final fields with full form & race replays for Rosehill Gardens here