It seems somewhat destiny that Jamie Donovan would come to form a passion for harness racing.
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Born and raised a stone's throw away from the Redcliffe Paceway - Knight Street where he grew up runs adjacent to the precinct - the now Tamworth-based trainer was around horses from the day he "came home from the hospital".
"My father was pretty much a full time horse trainer and my grandfather did it," Donovan recalled.
"So basically there's been horses in the backyard ever since the day I was born."
About 10 when he first started driving trackwork, he obtained his trainer's licence in 2006.
But to date it's just been a bit of a hobby, the 34-year-old hasn't taken the plunge down the full-time route.
Although the stable, which he runs with wife Rachel, who he met during one of the annual 'holiday' trips he would take with his late father, Michael, for the big carnival during the Country Music Festival, is growing all the time.
When The Leader spoke with Donovan on Thursday, they had just had another horse arrive the day before.
Counting probably 14 in work at the moment, juggling all that is involved in that with full-time work - he is an accountant with PKF while Rachel is a financial advisor at Bell Partners - life is "busy to say the least".
"A usual day for us is we probably start at 4.30 in the morning. We do the horses from about 4.30 to 7.30, go to work eight to five, then come home and do the afternoon shift," he said.
"It's nothing out of the ordinary for me to get in the house at 7.30/8 o'clock at night during the week."
But they love it.
"The horses and the racing side of things are sort of our outlet," he said.
"It's our break away from work. When we're at work we're all about work, when we're at home we block out work and we're sort of all about the horses."
On Saturday they will make the trip down to Sydney for the final of the time-honoured Carousel series after Fast Tracker, who Donovan trains and Rachel has a share in, won the fourth heat of the series last Saturday night.
Only purchasing the five-year-old about a month ago, it has been a bit of a whirlwind ride.
"We bought him thinking we'll just have a poke around here and have some fun with him," Donovan said.
"But after he ran second at Newcastle the week before on the Friday night, and how easy he'd been doing his times in trackwork we just sort of thought hang on, this horse is kind of going pretty good.
"So we thought we'll throw a ball at the stumps and have a go at the heats on Saturday night and he proved he was up to it."
He is optimistic about the gelding's chances in the $50,000 final after running the second fastest time of the six heats and clocking the quickest last 800m.
"We're very happy with how he's been this week between the runs," Donovan said.
"His last piece of trackwork on Wednesday was good so we can't be any more ready for Saturday night I don't think."
"I think if he can run as good as he ran last week he should be there abouts hopefully."
Blake Fitzpatrick will take the drive on Saturday night with Jack Trainor, who drove him to the heat win, having a runner of his own in the final.
