Trainer Paul Maher had a winner at Pakenham on Thursday on one of his last days training before he embarks on an unusual career path.
Maher prepared Mag Wheels to win the opening race of the Pakenham meeting four days before he hands in his licence to take up a job as a racing steward in Tasmania.
Maher said he applied for the job with Tasracing in April before shifting most of his team to Victoria to finish his training career.
"It's going to be a big change on what I've been doing for the last 15 years but I'm looking forward to it," Maher told Racing Victoria.
"As I've got further down and stayed in the race for the job, I wanted to finish my career back here where I started training in Victoria.
"I started to move the team over not knowing whether I was going to be successful. I found out a couple of weeks ago that I was successful so these are the last few days of my training career."
Maher said he started to look outside training as a career because of the time demands of the profession.
But he was happy to be staying in the racing industry.
"I've had it in the back of my mind for a while," Maher said.
"I just thought it might have been time, at this age, to start a new career even though it's going to be in the industry and it's something I'm going to enjoy and hopefully free me up with family."
Maher said he would transfer his Victoria-based horses to Kelvin Southey while Adrian Duggan will take over Maher's remaining Tasmanian horses.
