John Morrison in the pink colours behind No Fears. Photo supplied.The saying that success breeds success in the horse racing world is a commonly used term.

One only has to casually look into the industry to see that it’s dominated by families who have set the tempo for decades, with the odd new face scattered amongst the crowd from time to time.

But the real industry purists will tell you that it’s not the flashy last names, or the big heaving stables that keep a, sometimes, struggling game afloat, but instead the smaller folk.

The ones who might train two or three horses as a hobby to their main role, they are the ones who are the beating heart of the code.

Mid Canterbury lad John Morrison hails from one of those very families, and he like other local names such as O’Reilly, McCormick, Hay and Hanrahan are just further instalments of long family lines of industry participants trying to foot it from week to week with the big guns.

And he’s doing a good job of it too.

Morrison was bred into the harness racing game, his late mother, Suzy was an astute horsewomen and his father Chris is a renowned saddler and trainer himself around the Canterbury region.

From a young age, even this writer remembers the young Morrison kid hanging around at the races, helping whoever he could – holding conversations with men who were sometimes five six or even seven times his own age.

There was just never going to be anything else that John Morrison was going to do.

But it’s taken a while to get warmed up.

The elusive first win as a junior driver took a while to unfold – and plenty of drives, but Morrison never let it get to him.

“It was frustrating,” he said.

“But I just had to wait for it to happen, there was no reason to get all worked up about it or anything.”

Now though, Morrison’s off and racing – literally.

With 20 wins on the board for the season he sits second on the national junior drivers’ premiership leader board, just one win behind current leader, Sheree Tomlinson.

The season has seen him hitting the road most weeks and heading down into the depths of Southland to take drives and with a strong support base down there, it’s proving to be a successful attack.

“I’ve been really lucky to have got some huge support from a number of trainers down there.

“It’s a big effort to go down there most weeks and it does take it out of you, but driving some nice horses always helps.”

Morrison is splitting his time between driving all over the South Island, doing farrier work around the Canterbury region and also helping out leading trainer Paul Court at his stable in West Melton in the mornings.

And on top of all that, he’s training his own small team of three horses as well.

“Three is plenty for me; I work them around my commitments at Paul’s, where I spend a couple of mornings a week, mostly working on the young ones.”

After highlighting his prowess in the sulky in the early parts of the season, Morrison stepped things up again last month when he claimed his first win as a trainer.

Unlike his first driving success, the first training win took nowhere near as long when No Fears was victorious at only the 14th time Morrison had taken a horse to the races.

And he’d only just got started with No Fears who joined his team a month or so earlier.

He took over the training of the eight-year-old from Patrick O’Reilly after his Aunt, Michelle Baird, sent him the horse on a deal.

“Michelle is my mum’s sister. Their father was Jack McDonald and it is actually his colours that I wear.

“They hadn’t been out for a while (1982) so it was good to get a win in them with the family connection.”

Morrison’s pink colours will be a sight around the South Island over the coming weeks as we enter into one of the busiest racing periods of the season.

The young horseman will be down in Gore on December 27 where he has some strong drives before hitting the road again and being at venues like Motukarara, potentially Reefton and then down to the Central Otago circuit after New Year.

“It’s a busy time of the year, but a great time because there’s so much racing to enjoy.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

© The Ashburton Guardian - 25 December 2018

Ashburton born-and-bred Black Ferns coach Glenn Moore will form part of the Mid Canterbury coaching line-up for the 2019 Heartland Championship. Photo supplied.Mid Canterbury’s new Heartland Championship rugby coaching line-up for 2019 has been named, and it features a man who led Mid Canterbury through two of their most successful campaigns in recent seasons.

Well-regarded and successful international-level rugby coach Glenn Moore had been appointed to a newly created position of director of rugby for the Mid Canterbury Rugby Union.

A key part of that role would be helping to coach Mid Canterbury in the 2019 Heartland Championship, along with Dale Palmer and Jason Rickard, who were assistant coaches of this year’s squad.

Mid Canterbury Rugby Union (MCRU) chief executive Ian Patterson said a new part-time role had been created following a review of the 2018 season, which identified the need to develop a more integrated player and coach development pathway which provided ongoing support and mentoring to coaches and players.

That role would be taken on by Moore, who was also the current Black Ferns coach.

“We are very pleased to have secured the services of Glenn, he will be a huge asset to the union,” Patterson said.

“His skill set will significantly strengthen the union’s local coach development pathway and Glenn brings his outstanding leadership, knowledge and experience to our Heartland campaign.”

Moore said his primary role would be developing and supporting both coaches and players.

“I see it as an opportunity to help.

“I’m back living in the area so to be able to put something back into the community and the grassroots part of the game is a good thing,” Moore said.

The 2018 season was one of Mid Canterbury’s worst in recent seasons, only making the Lochore Cup (fifth to eighth) play offs after a player eligibility rule breach by the West Coast saw them deducted points and drop to ninth on the table, propelling Mid Canterbury to eighth.

They lost their Lochore Cup semi-final to Horowhenua-Kapiti.

Moore coached the Hammers to consecutive Meads Cup (top four) wins in 2013 and 2014.

“It was just a good period.

“The time was right and we had a committed group and a fresh-look coaching staff, and a good group of players who were really focused and wanted to achieve,” Moore said.

From there Moore took up an assistant coach role with the Blues Super Rugby franchise, and then coached the national Black Ferns women’s side to a win at the 2017 Rugby World Cup.

The team then became the first ever women’s team to be named World Rugby Team of the Year in 2017.

Prior to his time with Mid Canterbury back in 2013 and 2014, Moore coached North Otago, Otago and the Highlanders, and Patterson said he brought a wealth of knowledge to his new role and was keen to contribute to the development of coaches and players within the Mid Canterbury region.

In his new role, Moore would lead the preparation of the Mid Canterbury Heartland Championship side and assist in the development of the MCRU’s performance pathway and coaches.

That pathway included under-18 to senior representative squads.

Moore moved back to Ashburton earlier this year to take up the position of general manager at the Smallbones dealership in Tinwald, commuting for his role with the Black Ferns.

His contract to coach the Black Ferns goes through to the end of 2019.

By Erin Tasker © The Ashburton Guardian - 22 December 2018

Heena Shah. Photo supplied.Some people dream of travel that takes them to ancient sites or famous art galleries; Heena Shah dreamed of travel that would take her into space. She talks to reporter Sue Newman about a trip to one of America’s Space Camps, a trip that has inspired her to now take Ashburton students on that same voyage of discovery.

Space might be dubbed the last frontier, but it’s a frontier Ashburton College teacher Heena Shah has always been keen to explore.

For years she’s been fascinated by America’s space programme and for years she’s wanted to push her boundaries as a science teacher by taking part in a space camp, by eating, breathing and living the life of an astronaut.

A science conference in April opened the door when she listened to an Australian science teacher speaking.

He talked about space camp and team he was taking later in the year.

“He was absolutely inspiring.

“He talked about what he does in class, how he approaches science with his students and the excitement and enthusiasm of teaching students to think beyond the boundaries.

“I was so motivated just listening to him,” Heena said.

The teacher was leading a team of Australian teachers and students to an American space camp later in the year. Heena wanted to be part of that team.

“I came home all excited. The fire had already ignited with I was teaching at Cashmere High in 2008 and 2009 and ever since then I’d been wanting to go.

“It’s been a long time.”

Since then she’s never lost sight of her dream of attending a space camp, it was just the how that eluded her.

Now she had an opportunity.

While it was too late to have any of her college students included in the group, Heena managed to secure a place for herself on a camp based in Alabama.

The camp was the main focus of the trip, but in the days before they went behind the barriers into the camp, the group visited a range of science centres in Los Angeles and New York and made a stop-off at Microsoft headquarters.

All of that was a dream for a science teacher, she said.

The Microsoft tour gave the science team an opportunity to meet researchers and to find out how things worked behind the scenes. They also got to take control of the Microsoft robot.

Those visits were great, but for the 10 teachers and 35 students, space camp was the holy grail.

“It didn’t matter that we didn’t know one another, we all shared the same passion. We were so likeminded, we never stopped talking,” she said.

Space camp might have been just one week long, but it was a week where every minute was carefully programmed, none were wasted.

The camp was functional, far from luxurious. The students and teaches stayed in habitats inside a fenced compound and from the moment they arrived they were straight down to business.

“Each group had its own leader and each group worked on several different programmes.”

Those programmes included planning a mission to Mars, flying a shuttle, landing on an international space station and repairing a shuttle and returning to earth.

“I had an opportunity to be the person in command on the ground, making sure everything ran as it should and in the next session I was an astronaut.

“It was extremely exciting to be in a space suit,” she said.

The group also made a heat shield, created a robot and a rocket.

“It takes a different kind of mind to do this, to overcome the challenges and to design accordingly.

“We did a lot of learning in seven days,” she said.

She also spent time in a centrifuge experiencing extreme G-forces and in a scuba tank experiencing zero gravity.

All activities were carried out within the camp’s base building, but the atmosphere created was as close to the real thing as possible.

The days were long, the flow of information relentless and the challenges extremely tough, but Heena described the week as sheer joy.

“I felt as though I was living in another world.”

Back at college, she’s now encouraging her science students to consider being part of next year’s team. And she’s already done the ground work.

“I’ve spoken to the board of trustees and to the principal and they’ve agreed in principle if we want to run a trip for local students. It’s the opportunity of a lifetime. I hope there are students who will take up this opportunity,” she said.

Space camp is not just for science students, it would also benefit kids with a love of maths or those interested in design, she said.

“There is just so much they can learn. The tour is multi-faceted. I had the privilege to do this and now I want to open it up to the students too.

“It’s life-changing.”

Heena trained as a teacher after coming to New Zealand from India.

She taught at Cashmere High before coming to Ashburton and said a focus on space at that school inspired her dream.

Students at her former school are involved in the space camp programme.

She’s passionate about science as a subject and says she wants to broaden the horizons of her students to think beyond the classroom, to think about one of the many fields of science as a career. If she can inspire one student a year to make their career in that field, she says she’ll count her teaching career as a success.

As well as undertaking her own fundraising, Heena said she was well supported locally, particularly by the Ashburton Lions Club.

By Sue Newman © The Ashburton Guardian - 22 December 2018