Racing: Trainer Allan Sharrock set to smash remaining personal bests to wrap stunning season

Trainer Allan Sharrock is chasing more silverware. Photo / Supplied

Allan Sharrock is set to smash his remaining training personal bests in the next few days to wrap a stunning season.

The Taranaki trainer heads to Friday's closed doors meeting at Otaki and then Tauranga on Saturday needing one more victory to train 50 winners in a season for the first time in his career.

But the milestones don't stop there.

Sharrock has just passed $1 million in domestic stake earnings for only the second time in his career, the last being in 2006 when his horses earned $1,017,745, a total he has in his sights maybe as soon as tomorrow.

He has also trained six black-type winners this season; his record is seven and he could equal that if London Express wins one of the final black-type races of the season, the $50,000 Tauranga Classic at listed level on Saturday.

But for all the big numbers Sharrock is putting up this season, as well as winning the Wellington Cup and St Leger, one sticks out.

"I am really proud of the strike rate I have been able to put together," says Sharrock who has trained a winner every four starts.

"I think only Johno [Benner] and Hollie [Wynyard] are ahead of me on the strike rate table and they have lined up less horses, although they have done a great job.

"To train a winner every four starts is something that makes me proud."

Sharrock has only had a strike rate under five once in his career, in 1989 and it is a number rarely achieved by trainer in the top 20 on the premiership.

It is not just his own work that Sharrock is proud of but the season of Sharrock's apprentice Hazel Schofer, whose 69 wins so far put her fifth in the national premiership but also 10 wins clear of Kozzi Asano for the leading apprentice title.

Asano, who has been sidelined with injury, returns to riding on Thursday but would need a stunning July to catch Schofer, who has some good rides this weekend.

"Hazel has done a massive job because she has sometimes struggled with her weight so I am hugely proud of her," says Sharrock.

"She has worked really hard and is a smart young lady who could be successful in any walk of life but she has dedicated herself to her job."

Shofer will be the third apprentice title winner to have worked for Sharrock should she claim the title, with Michael Walker and Matt Cameron both having done so.

"I think I am hard on my apprentices because I expect, and sometimes demand, a low error rate because you don't win a lot of races making mistakes."

The Sharrock and Schofer combination's next winner could come as soon as race one at Otaki, where the meeting will be closed to the public because of the Covid-19 restrictions in the Wellington region.

"We have a filly in the juvenile race called Catsacharmer we really like and Hazel has been wasting to ride it so I think it will go close," says Sharrock.

"And I also think we can win with Ladies Man in race two."

As for London Express securing Sharrock that record-equalling seventh black-type win for the season on Saturday?

"She has to be a good top three chance but Supreme Heights is the one to beat.

"Still, our mare has been crying out for 1400m on a heavy track and that is what she will get and by late in the day us being drawn wide might really help."

Meanwhile, Sharrock's stable sprinting star Tavi Mac has already won one public jumpout last week and heads to another on Monday with the Foxbridge Plate at Te Rapa his first early season aim.

"I will probably give him a sprint start before then to get him ready and he looks like a Welsh pit pony at the moment — he is so hairy.

"But I am really happy with him."