Our People
Ray Green
Ray Green gets the lowdown from stable driver Zachary Butcher after a race at Alexandra Park. Green’s been there, done that, but now he’s staying put churning out the winners
Johnny Cash could well have been referring to Ray Green when he sang “I’ve been everywhere, man”.
From the day Lincoln Farms’ main man set off in 1977 on a boat to Prestatyn in North Wales, looking after 10 horses en route through the Panama Canal, he’s experienced all kinds of harness racing.
During six years training and driving there, when he escaped the harsh winters moving to places like Pompano Park in Florida or in Italy, Green picked up all manner of skills.
And while he returned to New Zealand for a stint working for Ron Hanford in Mangere, and even went fruit picking in Australia, he ended up back in Britain training and driving for a wealthy owner.
Five years later he was on the move again, this time to Maryland in the United States to train and drive for three years.
Green and his wife Deborah eventually returned home, young toddler in tow, to find the industry booming amid a bullish sharemarket.
Green continued pottering round with horses and when Ray Norton retired in 2004 he landed the job as co-trainer for Lincoln Farms, along with Robert Mitchell.
In five seasons the pair notched 80 winners before Green took over sole responsibility for the team in 2009.
And he has never looked back. Now in his 17th season at the helm, Green has 510 winners to his name, and continues to develop good pacers for John and Lynne Street.
It’s a far cry from the future predicted for Green by his first employer in the industry, the late Doug Grantham.
The 16-year-old had been with Grantham for only three months when he was told he’d never be any good at it and he should try something else “like sheep farming.’’
Green, unperturbed, set about ringing trainers in the north and one of the first he called was the maestro Peter Wolfenden.
“I told him I’d been sacked and when he heard I’d lasted as long as three months with Grantham he said I’d better come and see him.
“I was with Wolfie for five years and even got to drive Cardy a few times.’’
Cardigan Bay had only just returned from Perth, where his Interdominion trip ended in disaster after a training mishap, and Green says it wasn’t known if he’d ever race again.
Green has trained some special horses in the interim and while has yet to find that out and out champion, he says at Lincoln Farms he has every chance to do so.
“Training is easy now but the key is you’re only as good as your stock and your help.
“We have a good bunch here at the moment - I’ve got good drivers helping - and my wife comes in in the afternoons and does all the massaging and treats all their lumps and bumps.”
Add to that the vital farm and paddock maintenance carried out by Street, on his tractor, and his brother Kevin, and the odd jobs done by “gopher” Les Purdon and you have a solid unit.
Green says while he learned a lot overseas, much of it can’t be implemented here with different medication rules and styles of racing.
“Young horses is where it is at for us now, it’s all about two-year-olds and three-year-olds.’’
Bread and butter horses don’t get to enjoy the facilities at the Pukekohe barn for long, Street replacing them every year with another bunch of well bred yearlings in his hunt for the best.
His globe-trotting days might be over and Green, 79, might have taken on a partner to help relieve the day-to-day stresses of training, but he hopes to have a few good years left in him yet.
And, yes, he’ll be looking for the next champion to replace his recently retired dual New Zealand Cup winner Copy That.
Nathan Delany
Nathan Delany impressed Ray Green on his southern campaign with The Big Lebowski. From Kidz Kartz to a training partnership at Lincoln Farms, that’s the remarkable progression for Nathan Delany who joins Ray Green at the helm of one of the country’s strongest stables.
Delany, 24, gets to share the top job at Lincoln Farms a decade after his first introduction to racehorses, a real stamp of confidence from Green and stable owners John and Lynne Street.
Green says he was impressed by the way Delany stepped up on their recent Canterbury campaign, giving him the confidence to leave The Big Lebowski in his care and return to Auckland.
“He’s quite a fastidious young man and a pretty efficient operator. He’s had a good grounding in the business with big teams, both here and over numerous years with Barry Purdon and Scott Phelan. He doesn’t need any schooling on that.”
Joining in a partnership would give Delany the opportunity to establish himself as a trainer, says Green.
“John is all about giving these youngsters a leg up and Nathan is good to work with.”
Street has already helped Zachary Butcher and Andre Poutama establish their own teams at Lincoln Farms, while still calling on their help when needed. And with talented junior Monika Ranger, foreman Andy Sharpe and his brother Craig, and Jimmy Stephens, the team works well, says Green.
“But we’ve got about 35 horses here, and work 25 on average, so it will be good to have someone to share the load.”
Delany knows how lucky he is to get the opportunity at Lincoln Farms with 42 driving wins and one training success to his name.
“It’s a hard game to get into, especially if you don’t have a family in racing.
“I came here straight from school at the age of 14. School wasn’t my go and I wasn’t even going in the end. I thought working at the stable was better than doing nothing.”
Delany’s first experience behind a horse was as a Kidz Kartz driver but he found the ponies too small.
After two and a half years of working with the real thing at Lincoln Farms, Delany spread his wings, flying to Australia where he worked in a stable in Adelaide.
“But I didn’t like it at all, got homesick, and came back after a week and a half.”
Luckily, his return coincided with an opening at the Clevedon stable of leading trainers Barry Purdon and Scott Phelan.
“Barry and Scotty are so professional and I stayed there for two and a half years before doing another two years with Dave and Clare McGowan at Pukekohe.”
Delaney has been back at Lincoln Farms now for long enough to know his future lies in training, not driving.
“There are a lot of good drivers out there so it’s hard to make a name for yourself. I might drive the odd one in the future but I prefer training. You see all the young ones come through, get them from an early age, and break them in. I enjoy that more and have two of my own I’m working.”
Delany says he’s looking forward to the new year with Lincoln Farms having a number of nice young horses in work.
He believes his patience will stand to him in the education process.
“You have to take your time. You can’t get angry with them. You know what to expect from colts and just go with them.”
But, no, he can’t name a favourite.
“There are no pets here, they’re all the same.”
Craig Sharpe
Craig Sharpe… an integral cog in the Lincoln Farms’ wheel. Lincoln Farms’ foreman Craig Sharpe cut his teeth in the training ranks when in partnership with fellow Pukekohe horseman Todd MacFarlane, winning 80 races in eight seasons.
Among the highlights of his time were a Group I win in the 2012 Harness Jewels with Cyclone U Bolt and a Group III win in the 2013 Gold Coast Oaks with Splendour.
Sharpe, who has been with Lincoln Farms for seven years, notched three winners in the cart earlier in his career and has scored another two in the amateur ranks.
But he his more proud of his training achievements and apart from being an integral cog in the Lincoln Farms’ wheel, he potters round training the odd horse himself.
Sharpe took over veteran trotter Rarangi Jewel when he saw the horse advertised for sale - “I thought he would give me something to do in my lunch hour.’’
Rarangi Jewel credited Sharpe with his maiden win when scoring at Cambridge in September, 2016 and he has gone on to train 12 more winners.
Monika Ranger
Monika Ranger … not intimidated by horses any more. Monika Ranger never really liked horses and there were plenty of times when she regretted being pushed into a career in harness racing.
But that was all forgotten amid the high fives and congratulations after she drove her first winner at Alexandra Park in February, 2022.
And, in the ultimate irony, when Ranger swept to the lead 100 metres out on Call Me Trouble, it was the calming words of champion reinsman Tony Herlihy, beside her on Aardiebythehill, that helped her to the magic moment.
“I was getting a bit excited then my horse chucked in a rough step and Tony saw me throwing my reins around and said ‘hold on to him, you’ve got this’.
“I grabbed hold but wouldn’t have contained myself had he not said that.”
Ranger, now working at Lincoln Farms, has come a long way since she reluctantly took her first job at Herlihy’s Strike Won Stable, forced into going by her dad Duane, the epitome of the pushy parent.
“I was at high school when dad saw this Facebook post by Tony and Suzanne Herlihy saying they were looking for stable workers.
“He messaged them and said I’d come - without telling me. He didn’t tell me until a couple of days out and I was shitting myself. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t asked me.
“He said it will be good, you can earn a bit of money.”
Ranger says it was more like her dad was pushing her to live his dream - the closest he had got to horses was as a racing journalist.
“I went along but after the first day I didn’t want to go back. I had real anxiety, I was so tired, and I didn’t enjoy it. Not growing up with horses I didn’t know a lot and I was intimidated by them.”
Even when her dad took her to Kidz Kartz as a youngster many years earlier, she didn’t really like it.
It was there she met the late trainer Tom Saia, a fellow Tongan who helped her and gave her her first helmet.
“I sort of enjoyed the competition of driving ponies but I had a few accidents which threw me off.”
Ranger is thankful now that she stuck it out in those early days.
“I kept thinking ‘I don’t think I can do this, I don’t know anything, I’m not good enough’, but I kept going and gradually got more confidence.
“Initially I started doing (mucking out) boxes because I had no experience with horses. But Suzanne really looked after me - she was the best. It was like I was the golden child. She always cooked dinner and made sure I was OK and got what I needed.”
Slowly Ranger was introduced to taking horses out to the paddock and, after a year, she realised she was starting to enjoy herself.
Winning Harness Racing New Zealand’s groom of the year award was a big filip, as was the night she strapped Temporale when he won his first Group I race, the 2017 National Trot.
A photograph of her hugging her boss when he came back to scale, with her dad taking notes alongside, is a family favourite.
“I started to get interested in the racing and remember watching the juniors and thinking could that be me? ‘No, I don’t have the guts, I’m not good enough’.”
Ranger stayed with the Herlihys for five years and says she learned most of what she knows there, broadening her boundaries through a two-year stint with Steven Reid and Simon McMullen before moving a few metres to Lincoln Farms.
Ranger says she’s lucky to have had Lincoln Farms plus its No. 1 driver Zachary Butcher and also the Reid-McMullen team supporting her with drives.
“If it hadn’t been for Zac I’d have struggled to get a drive, he’s really helped by giving me a go - and he’s only got two horses of his own.”
Ranger has now driven 38 winners, notching her season best of 16 in 2024.
Zachary Butcher
Zac Butcher, pictured with top jockey Sam Collett during a recent promotion for Daffodil day. Lincoln Farms pulled a masterstroke in April when it lured Zachary Butcher from the leading stable of Barry Purdon.
Few young reinsmen have made such a fast impact as Butcher, 30, who in just 15 full seasons in silks has already notched 947 wins from 6637 drives, earning $12.86 million in stakes for connections.
Butcher hogged all the headlines in 2012, his fifth and last season as a junior driver, winning 114 races to finish second only to champion driver Dexter Dunn.
And who could forget his triumphant celebration in the final race of that season at Alexandra Park when he stood high on the sulky shafts after getting Jonny Wilkinson home to pip his dad David by one win.
But it didn’t take Butcher long to eclipse his 322 wins as a junior after he teamed with Purdon, driving a succession of big race winners, not the least the second and third Harness Jewels wins bagged by Sky Major.
Head-hunting Butcher made perfect sense for Lincoln Farms as the young gun had already driven 35 winners for the stable in the previous three seasons.
Leading driver at Alexandra Park in 2019-20 with 28 wins, 2020-21 with 43 wins and 2021-22 with 31 wins, Butcher’s skill in the cart is a real asset for Lincoln Farms.
He finished fourth on the open drivers’ premiership in 2022 with 78 wins.
Butcher also trained his first winner in June, 2019 when Zeuss Bromac scored at Auckland.
His tally now stands at 23 with trotter Call Me Trouble (10 wins), Zarias (6), Tears Of Joy (3), Sharkies Girl (2) and Whisky Neat.
Andre Poutama
It was the best decision Andre Poutama has made in his life when he packed up the family and moved north from Palmerston North early in 2016.
Along with wife Amy and young children Penny and Finlay, Poutama, 26, could see the only real future he had in harness racing was to get closer to the action.
Poutama’s talent in the sulky was plain for all to see when he drove as a junior for Stephen Doody, claiming his debut win in 2011.
Poutama climaxed his fledgling career with a win in the Australasian Junior Drivers’ Championship at Menangle in Sydney in 2014.
Under the wing of Lincoln Farms’ trainer Ray Green Poutama knuckled down to his new job and in his first season as an open driver exceeded his target, reining home 33 winners.
Poutama now boasts a driving record of 300 wins from 3103 drives, his greatest achievement a Group I win behind Jo’s Dream when the mare dead-heated with Partyon in a thrilling finish to the $100,000 Queen Of Hearts at Auckland in December, 2017.
Poutama has also added another string to his bow, scoring his first win with Beg For Chevron at Auckland in August, 2018.
His tally now stands at 27, having prepared Kai Time, Takenoprisoners (2), Runcle (2), Superfast Ninja (2), The Batmobile, Rastusburn, Allonblack, Ideal Sports Girl (2), Smokinhotcheddar (4), Express Play, Frankie Jones, Mackali (3), Tintoretto, Kingsclere (2), Kristofferson, Hail Lucius and Major Bond.
