MOVING on from training horses for one of Australia's richest men, Murray Sullivan is enjoying the change of pace in the country.
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After training for mining magnate Clive Palmer at Cold Mountain, Sullivan is back at Forbes working horses with Jason Gaffney.
Both work full-time, but have enough time to work a team of horses.
Concreter Gaffney doesn't have as much flexibility getting time off work and takes the training title, so Sullivan does most of the steering.
No stranger to the Riverina regularly racing at Young, racing at Wagga is rarity because of the long trip.
Still the three-hour trip was made worthwhile with Montana Maestro (2.40 fav) leading all the way.
Taking advantage of the gun barrier, Sullivan was confident about coming home with a winner.
"He went really good last week but they posted him the chair," he said.
"After drawing one was always going to be hard to beat if he could hold the front."
That he did, holding off a late surge from The Brazen Jasper to win by 1.7 metres.
Sullivan returned from Queensland last year after Palmer decided to focus more on politics than horses.
As the season draws to a close tomorrow, the Forbes combination has already cracked the 30 winners mark and expect things to get better as the winners keep mounting.
"We sort of just do it as a hobby and next year we should get even better horses as we have a lot of young ones coming through," Sullivan said.
"People are starting to take note now and how they are going."
For all his success in Queensland and at times at Menangle with Cold Mountain, the 26-year-old is enjoying the more relaxed country lifestyle.
Palmer might have his detractors as he finds a foothold in the Australian political arena, but Sullivan described his uncanny ability to know his horses.
"He didn't come out very often, but I pointed out a horse and said 'that's Fox Valley' he would tell me the mare, the sire, how many starts it had and how many dollars he'd earnt to the cent," Sullivan said.
"If I put two horses in front of him he wouldn't know what was a boy or a girl, but by name he knew more about the horses than anymore and really did his homework.
"He just loved them as he loved the sport."