But the idea of working within the harness racing industry was always in the back of her mind and so she commenced working with legend harness racing trainer, Charlie Parsons.
Her time with Parsons at Bankstown was instrumental in developing her hands-on horse skills and to this day she talks fondly of the man.
“The skills I learnt from Charlie prepared me perfectly for a career in training,” said Kim. “We always had 20-30 horses in work and I would work from sun-up to sun-down doing everything from shoeing to training and driving in races.
Kim’s stellar Harness Racing career resulted in many success stories. In fact, she was NSW’s number one female driver in the early 80s and represented the State in the Annual Australian Drivers competition.
Kim drove more than 100 winners including winning doubles and trebles at Harold Park, Harness Racing headquarters in Sydney. Most Harness Racing fans will say that Kim cut short a promising driving career when she decided to venture into the thoroughbred industry.
“I was not happy with the low prize money levels in harness racing and I was struggling to get ahead financially even though I was driving plenty of winners,” said Kim. “I liked the excitement of the gallops and of course the higher money on offer was enticing enough for me to change codes.”
For the first couple of years Kim enjoyed a dual license training both pacers and gallopers but eventually she gave the standard breds away to concentrate on the thoroughbreds.
Kim’s first major thoroughbred success was with Never True who took out the South Grafton Cup in 1991.
Many winners have rolled on since then including a Doomben Classic with Enforced, Grafton Cup with the injury plagued Catapult and Mahtoum taking out the Sydney Cup - recent winners are upcoming stars Delago Star and Harrykay.
Today Kim has firmly established herself as a horse trainer of the modern era.
"Basically I live, work and breathe my horses" says Kim.
Kim is available for Q&A style speaking, Endorsements and Special Guest.
