At Friday’s presentation, celebrating the athletic achievements of the clubs’ members in 2017, 27-year-old Gallagher became the first since Jason Stewart in 2008 to win the club’s most coveted awards, the Open Championship and Aggregate.

Paul Fenn, the 2016 Open Champion and hot favourite to go back-to-back, missed the season due to injury.

In his absence, Gallagher ran the fastest time in all but one of the 18 races contested.

Gallagher also scored maximum points in the championship, which he previously shared with Anthony Mellors in 2009.

“This is the first time I’ve won it outright,” Gallagher said. 

“As for the aggregate, I wasn’t really sure how it worked and I didn’t give it a thought until the final few races when I read in the club newsletter that I had a chance.”

In a year of unprecedented success, Gallagher scored a hat-trick of wins.

The list of victories included the prestigious King of the Hill race. The King of the Hill is a tortuous three-kilometre climb to the top of Ararat’s One Tree Hill - his sixth win in the club’s toughest challenge of the 12 run so far.

He needed that win to wrest the aggregate from veteran Adrian van Raaphorst, who failed by just three points to win for the second time in three years.

Julie Hertz also won three races in her breakout year, recording personal bests over four distances to easily win the Open Ladies title and was declared the club’s most improved runner for the season.

Ian McCready was named the Over 50s champion for 2017.

McCready’s daughter Rachel won the encouragement award after a promising second and a fourth in her rookie year.