“I’ve loved the achievement of getting dogs ready to race. I’ve really enjoyed the countless hours breeding, whelping, rearing, breaking in and racing dogs. I’ve learned to be patient and deal with hiccups along the way. And I love being a woman amongst the men because no one puts it over me.”
Blue Juggler notching up his tenth win in start number 16 in the process, with every one of his career outings coming on the Maitland U-turn.
“He’s a very good pup, he’s still just a baby but he’s going the right way. We whelped and reared that litter with Ezra Man, Max Stappen, Hey Mickey and Blue Juggler and they all have a lot of ability,” Field said.
Ezra Man has won 10 of 18 starts and is now based in Victoria with Anthony Azzopardi
“And we love racing him [Blue Juggler] at Maitland. It’s our closest track and our dogs are speed dogs so tracks like Maitland really suit them. You couldn’t get better people helping out down there as well.”
After a jovial back and forth with husband Brad (which Charmaine won by the way), we agree the 63-year-old’s official training journey began in 2009.
“The first dog I trained by myself was Lonesome Sunrise. He raced at Maitland, he was a big black dog but he’d go in the boxes beautiful and was exciting to watch,” Field said.
“Before that we had three young kids and Brad and I were both working so we didn’t have enough hours in the day to prepare them. We still owned a couple of dogs but they were never in our name. Then as the kids got older, I left my job and we bought some bitches and got into fulltime.”
The Field's family tapping into the proven ‘Mint’ line of Ray and Christine Watson to kickstart their operation.
“They had Mint Mojo who was a very good dog and we bought Jamati Jamie who comes out of the Tenthill Doll and Flying Amy line. That helped us find our feet I guess,” Field added.
The 15-years since have been full of “Good Memories and some tough times” according to Field, but with more than 200 winners from 1000 starts, she is certainly doing something right.
Her husband Brad admitting their sustained success wouldn’t be possible without Charmaine’s hard work and dedication.
“This is nothing new to dog people, but our days start at 5am and we finish up at about 9pm every day of the week, rain, hail or shine,” Brad said.
“That’s trialing, racing, looking after the dogs at home, getting them checked by vets, looking after the pups and brood bitches. A lot of work goes into getting winners and everything we do, everything Charmaine does is about greyhounds.”
“Our son Clint helps us. Charmaine’s brother Troy helps us. It’s a big team effort. We’ve even got two young boys, Jack and Zach from CESSNOCK who help us at the track now too. Their mum works at Muswellbrook track and she asked if we could help them out and educate them a bit with the dogs and they’re lovely kids and we’re willing to help them as much as we can.”
