Horse trainer Belinda Mair opens up on Mick Mair’s racing legacy

Sunshine Coast trainer Belinda Mair has opened up on the struggles after the passing of her husband, Group 1 winning trainer Mick, and revealed her stable’s future goals.

Racing trainer Belinda Mair, Sunshine Coast. Picture: Patrick Woods.

Sunshine Coast trainer Belinda Mair is hopeful of continuing on the legacy left by her late great husband Mick Mair as she takes over the reins of the Caloundra-based stable.

Known as ‘the Mair of the Sunshine Coast’, the Group 1 and multiple premiership winning Sunshine Coast trainer, life member and former board member sadly passed away on October 20, 2022, aged 74.

Mrs Mair took over the full-time duties of the stable in 2019 while also operating as a full-time carer for Mick but said the past three months had been ‘full on’.

“I’ve been with Mick for 20 years and I used to work with jumping horses and dressage beforehand so this is the first real racing stable I’ve worked in,” she said.

“Before that I was doing accounting so it was a huge switch but I hated being behind a desk, I’d rather shovel horse manure.

“The last three months have been quite full on but I love it and Mick really loved it.”

Mick and Belinda Mair with good friend Trevor Miller at the Caloundra Cup launch in 2015. Picture: Brett Wortman

The 48-year-old said the pair spoke about a partnership before Mick’s passing.

“We did speak about going into a partnership together but I felt that Mick was his own identity,” she said.

“Everyone knew Mick as the funny larrikin and because he was suffering a terminal illness, I didn’t want to take that from him so I suppose a partnership was a way of saying he was going which I never wanted to accept.

“He fought so long and every time the doctors would tell him he didn’t have long or only a couple of months left he’d go another year and I guess I was just praying that it would continue.

“The doctors gave him three years to live and he promised me five which in the end he lasted four years, 11 months and three weeks.”

Racing trainer Belinda Mair, Sunshine Coast. Picture: Patrick Woods.

The stable currently had 11 horses in work and Belinda said she hoped to continue on.

“Mick never had a big head and made sure I was the same because you have your winners, you have your losers, you’ve got good stock and you’ve got bad stock so there’s never anything that’s certain in racing and that’s the best tip he ever gave me,” she said.

“I just want to keep going, which is what Mick wanted me to do.

“It’s tough without him but I’ll just keep battling on and hopefully we can get one of those Winx’s somewhere along the way.”