By Andrew Smith
Lauren Abbott has tasted success with hundreds of race wins as both a jockey and a trainer but now she is in line for an accolade of a different sort.
Abbott is one of two finalists for the Queensland Off-The-Track Thoroughbred Care and Welfare Award at this year’s Australian Stud and Stable Staff Awards.
The 45-year-old juggles training around half a dozen horses for racing, along with retraining 12 former racehorses, as part of her role as a QOTT Acknowledged Retrainer.
Abbott said the nomination came as a bit of a shock after she only recently joined the QOTT Program to make her retraining endeavours official.
“I was actually pretty humbled and I was surprised actually, because I’ve only been a QOTT Acknowledged Retrainer since May last year,” Abbott said.
“It was great to be nominated – my friend (jockey) Georgie Cartwright actually nominated me and it was great to make the final two.
“I’ve been in the industry since I was a teenager as a jockey but doing the off-the-track retraining officially…it’s been less than 12 months since I began in the program.”
Abbott had a strong equestrian background as a teenager before starting her jockey apprenticeship as an 18-year-old.
She rode over 300 winners throughout Victoria and Queensland in the saddle, before retiring from race riding in 2011.
Abbott switched to helping run then-husband Brad Herne’s stable at Eagle Farm before deciding to set up her own operation in 2018.
While racing on the track kept her extremely busy, she has always found the time to retrain retired racehorses off it.
Rather than sending her horses off to be retrained elsewhere, Abbott decided she would take on the retired thoroughbreds herself.