74 runners contest today’s six-race Sky Racing 2 TAB-covered meeting which is also part of the Picone Family Summer Stars Series, which pays the leading jockey, trainer and horse a $500 bonus.

While she has celebrated wins at Armidale, Grafton and Moree since taking out a trainer’s licence earlier this year, Lennon has an  opportunity to score her first victory on her home track when she starts Dance Chelle in the Australian Hotel BM 55 Handicap and After The Bounce in the feature Diggers Cup.

Lennon has just four horses in work.

Her story commences in Germany where she was born, with a family that had no involvement with racing. 

The young girl with a natural love of horses set off on a search for adventure and experience that took her to New Zealand then Sydney, including a stint with Randwick trainer and former champion jockey Kevin Moses.

While in Sydney she met future husband Josh Lennon and together they moved to Inverell to help Josh’s parents, Stephen and Glenda Lennon, on their Mount Russel property. 

It must have come as quite a shock to move from Sydney where she had no family to Inverell where it seems every second person is somehow related to a Lennon.

Theresa has been an Australian citizen for three years and at the moment she and Josh are just working with horses owned by the family but in the future they may expand to be able to take on outside clients.

Horses are mainly worked on the property, with Josh and Theresa sharing the riding duties and once or twice a week they are taken for fast work at Inverell racecourse.

The training system has worked well with five-year-old mare Dance Chelle, who has only had six starts, never being out of a place, including recent trips to Dalby, Cessnock and Grafton. 

Dance Chelle meets some experienced campaigners today but has the services of coastal jockey Raymond Spokes to help overcome barrier 11.

The Lennons will also saddle up new addition to the stable, After The Bounce, with Matthew Bennet to ride. 

The horse was bred by Stephen Lennon and was leased and trained by coastal trainer Graeme Birney before returning home after an unplaced run in the strong Lismore Cup in September. 

After The Bounce was the winner of six races while in Birney’s care and his coastal form shows he will handle the track which is likely to have sting out of the ground as Inverell received over 100mm last week.

The Diggers Cup field includes Dusty’s Felt, the winner of 11 races and $214,000 prizemoney and Kingston Time (9 wins and $130,000), both trained by Paul Grills at Armidale but both handicapped to give After The Bounce more than 5kgs.

Therese Lennon has not been the only Inverell trainer in the winner’s circle, with Bill Perrett taking Just Elusive to Moree and Coffs Harbour to record consecutive wins. 

Another Inverell trainer, Shane Edmonds, joins several Tamworth trainers on the highway to Brisbane this weekend.

Edmonds has accepted with Finishing Card in a $100,000 race at Doomben (see below) after he chose to scratch the horse from a race on a heavy track in Sydney last week.

HNWRA trainers Greg Bennett, Sue Grills, Craig Martin and Ruth Cooper all have runners in Brisbane today.