THERE are plenty of families throughout the Bathurst district who have enjoyed a link with harness racing through the generations, but when it comes to the Hagney family the association is a little different.

Rather than being trainers or drivers, they instead assist with the running of each meeting the Bathurst Harness Racing Club stages.

Tony Hagney acts as track curator and shares the clerk of course duties with his brother Mick.

Their nephew Jack drives the mobile barrier while in years past, their brother Peter and father Austin have acted as clerk of the course.

It means the annual Gold Crown Carnival, which this year involves seven race meetings over a 10-day period, is a busy time for the Hagney clan.

“I have been involved for a life-time, I started before I was 18, before I was married,” Mick said.

“It’s a family tradition because my father used to do it. Dad did it when I was 10 or 12, then I started and worked with him before my brothers got involved. We’ve been doing it for years.”

Mick has spent the last 16 years of his job as clerk of the course teamed with a distinctive white horse known as Zeke.

Most nights the pair have a fairly quiet time, but they always have to be alert in case one of the runners gets out of control.

“You have definitely got to concentrate as you don’t have a lot of time to catch a horse if it does get away, we take it pretty seriously,” he said.

“When it does happen, you have got to be ready for it. We haven’t been tried out on this track thankfully.

“They [horses] are all different, I have had one go the wrong way, it was heading towards the field which was pretty exciting. And I had one which galloped and it was unbelievably fast, it was the fastest horse I have ever seen. Zeke soon caught up to him though, so I was pretty happy about that.”

Though Mick is in for a busy time over the next eight days as the Gold Crown Carnival continues, it is a time of year he enjoys.

“It’s a busy week, a lot of races on consecutive days, but it’s exciting. We get a big crowd in, so it’s good fun,” he said.

“It’s just the atmosphere that I enjoy, there are a lot of races and a lot of different horses, and there is also a lot of money at stake, which makes it exciting.”