It's that golden time of the year again at Tamworth and local reinsman Tom Ison is pumped and ready to collect some of the glitter.
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Ison has nine drives on Tuesday night at the "kick start" meeting for the Tamworth Harness Racing Club's Golden Guitar carnival, including a drive in the feature race on the program - the $12,000 Pub Group Gold Nugget.
The race which carries a gold nugget as the winning trophy is a race Ison has wanted to tick off his "bucket list" for a while.
"I would love to win the Gold Nugget race," he said.
He previously secured the first leg of the 'gold trifecta' back in 2021 when he drove Pitch Perfect to a win in the Tamworth City Cup.
"The Gold Nugget and a Golden Guitar Final are on my bucket list - I would like to complete the trifecta," he said.
"This is my third attempt at winning a gold nugget race so third time lucky we hope."
It was a tough decision as to what horse Ison would partner with his own pacer Metallica Man drawing the first emergency. But he has accepted the drive behind Boyzhavtime for the Roy Roots Jnr stables.
"I would actually prefer that my bloke (Metallica Man) got a run," added Ison.
That said, he is looking forward to teaming up with his old boss, Roy Roots, who was the trainer of Pitch Perfect.
"It is always good to be back with the old team," he said.
The Gold Nugget race has drawn contenders from Queensland, in Despondent, Surf Ace and Hy Voltage from the Graham Dwyer stables, and Geldof from the Ryan Veivers stables, along with a strong contingent from the Hunter Valley.
Roots has Boyzhavtime and Betterthanfederer, Darren Elder Rocktagonal while Clayton Harmey has last year's winner Portalegre, who will again have Blake Hughes in the spider, and Johnson Step, who was a winner at last week's Tamworth meeting and will be driven by Grace Panella.
North West Cups King Gottashopearly from the Richard Williams stables and driven by Caitlin McElhinney will be the sole local contender.
"I don't think it is an overly strong field but the draw is what will sort them all out," Ison said.
"Claytons' runners will be hard to beat but they have the worst draws in the race."
Portalegre and Johnson Step drew the 10 and 11 barriers respectively.
Ison will come into the meeting fresh off a win at Tamworth last Thursday behind the Brendan James-trained Mega Star. It was the second leg of a training double for James with Zoemagic having a win earlier in the meeting when driven by Panella.
"That was pretty special to bring up the training double for Brendan - it was his first training double and one he has been trying to achieve for a while now," Ison said.
As far as the Gold Nugget, he feels it "will be on from the outset" with the race to be contested over 1980m.
"It will be a tough race and the survival of the fittest in the end," he said.
