On Saturday the Tyler’s Hardware Handicap was held along the banks of the Wimmera River in Horsham, starting and finishing at the Sound Shell in Sawyer Park. A flat fast course greeted the 31 senior runners. Gary Saunders was the first runner away in the 10km race, setting a steady pace, with the rest of the field in hot pursuit.
With 2km to go Alexa Duke and Gaynor Radovic looked to have the field covered, but Stan Watson, who has shown steady improvement throughout the season, started to challenge the front markers with Kel Tyler and Ray Scott hot on his heals. However, Watson showed what a strong finishing runner he is and overtook Alexa Duke with 200 metres to go and stormed home to record his first victory this season. Ray Scott came in second, proving too strong in the final sprint for Alexa Duke who finished third.
Col Barnett once again produced the fastest time of 36 min 11 sec. Susie Ellis was the fastest female running a P.B. of 43 min 14 sec due to her current training schedule for the Adelaide Marathon.
The Junior 3km race was won by Emily, who lead all the way for a good win, with Jessica second and Naomi third. The fastest Junior boy was Marcus in a time of 11min 56sec. Adelene was the fastest girl in time of 13min 16sec.
Forteen Sub-Juniors lined up for the 1500m race. Young Tobias decided this was his race and stormed home to win from Elly by 10 sec. Liam came in third. Fastest time was produced by Nathan in 5min 51sec. Fastest girl was Sophie in a time of 6 min 30 sec.