10 minute read
20 Questions with Alex Townsend
Thundering home to victory in the 2018 Cox Plate (Image courtesy Racing Victoria).
PERFECT PARTNERS
Winx and Hugh Bowman
There are very few Australians who don’t know the name Winx. N. G. QUINLAN takes a closer look at the story behind the legend.
The bay filly sure didn’t look like much as she lined up at Warwick Farm Racecourse on the 4th of June 2014. Even her owners had more confidence in one of her stablemates to win or place. But three-year-old Winx won her first race that day over 1,100 metres, an event that marked the beginning of a stunning five year career as a recordbreaking racehorse, one who many have called the greatest of all time.
Winx was foaled on the 14th of September 2011 near a village named Jerrys Plains in the New South Wales Hunter Valley. She was a product of the Australian branch of the famous Irish Thoroughbred operation Coolmore Stud, and was sold as a yearling
for $230,000 in January 2013.
It wasn’t long before the filly began to show some serious promise as a racehorse. Her sire, Irish-born stallion Street Cry, had won the Dubai World Cup in 2002, but her dam, a New Zealand bay named Vegas Showgirl, had a brief and undistinguished career consisting of no wins from four starts. Winx’s name, indirectly inspired by her mother, was a reference to the winks given to showgirls by men in the front rows of burlesque shows in Las Vegas.
Teamed with New Zealand-born trainer Chris Waller, the bay filly from Jerrys Plains won both races of her 2013-2014 debut season. In her next season as a three-year-old, she scored her first feature race success when she won the Furious Stakes at Randwick in September 2014. During that season, Winx took four wins and three second places from ten starts. It was then that the racing world began to pay attention.
During the running of the Sunshine Coast Guineas in May 2015, Winx was trailing the field as they came into the last stretch, yet somehow she managed to find her pace and win the race by one and three-quarter lengths. It was an effort that her jockey Larry Cassidy described as “breathtaking”.
In her next season, 2015 to 2016, the now four-year-old Winx put in another stellar performance. In October 2015, she started as favourite in the Cox Plate at Moonee Valley Racecourse in Melbourne. She won by four and three-quarter lengths and was timed at 2:02.98, a new record for both the race and the course. Her rider that day was Hugh Bowman, the champion Australian jockey who went on to ride Winx to victory in twenty-five Group 1 races. In 2017 Bowman won the World’s Best Jockey award, presented by the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities, and was later inducted into the Australian Racing Hall of Fame.
It was not the first time that Bowman had ridden Winx. He had steered her to her first major win during the Sydney Spring Racing Carnival in September 2014, as well as riding her into her second place finish the following month in the Flight Stakes at Royal Randwick. However Winx and Bowman would not meet again until six months later, when he rode her to victory at the Queensland Oaks in Brisbane on the 30th of May 2015. Not long after this win, Bowman was assigned to the bay as her permanent jockey. He partnered with her for the next four racing seasons until her retirement in 2019. With Bowman in the saddle, Winx produced 32 wins and one second placing from their 33 starts as a team.
During Winx’s racing career, she won 37 of her 43 starts. That in itself is a remarkable statistic. Yet what makes Winx stand out from the rest is that she won 33 of those races in succession, the longest winning streak ever for an Australian horse. Winx was named Australian Champion Racehorse of the Year four times, as well as twice being recognised as the World’s Top Ranked Turf Horse. In 2018 she tied with British colt Cracksman for the title of World’s Best Racehorse, with both horses rated at 130. Also noteworthy is that Winx posted this rating for three consecutive years, a feat second only to Black Caviar’s. She is also the only horse ever to score four Cox Plate wins.
Winx capped off a magnificent racing career by winning the Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Randwick in April 2019. It was the third time she had taken the honours in that auspicious race, and the first time since 1923 that any horse had won the race three times in succession. Winx has been retired since September 2019, but the bay horse known as the Mighty Mare had already secured her place in the record books as one of the finest Thoroughbreds in three centuries of racing, winning over $26 million in prize money.
And in a less than happy ending to this otherwise triumphant story, Winx, who was soon to be a mother for the first time, lost her foal in October. The foal, a filly, was sired by I Am Invincible, Australia’s most expensive stallion, and was expected to be worth almost $10 million. However, we have no doubt that the story of this recordbreaking mare is very far from over.
Winx and Hugh Bowman, a winning team (Image courtesy Racing Victoria).
20 QUESTIONS
20 Questions with Alex Townsend
Alex Townsend, 4* Eventer and Level II Instructor, along with husband Derek Pascoe, a Director of Photography and keen eventer, are the owners of Wallaby Hill Farm, a private training facility for horses.
Q: At what age did you get
bitten by the riding bug?
A: About four I think. It’s a long time ago now!
Q: Did your parents want you to go
into a more ‘normal’ profession?
A: My parents aren’t horsey at all and they paid a lot of money for my education and sent me to university twice: first a BA then a Masters in Journalism. So they were definitely keen for me to use that and go into a ‘real’ profession. Before doing the Masters at UTS in Sydney, I was a diving instructor for 18 months in Egypt. The goal then was to become an underwater photographer, but then the horses got a hold of me again.
Q: How did you meet your
husband, Derek?
A: We met while diving in the Red Sea. He was living in London and working abroad as a cameraman in various war zones. After re-meeting Derek when I arrived back in London he was keen to return to Sydney, which he did in November 1999, and I followed in January 2020 to start my Masters.
Q: Have you taught Derek anything
about being a cameraman, and has Derek taught you anything about riding?
A: In the early days I could digitally edit stuff well before Derek could. He was a bit old school. Derek pipes up in the background, “Duck under trees!” A reference to 2015 when Alex sustained multiple fractures, lacerations and broke her neck due to a low hanging tree branch at a 3-day event.
Q: Which riders are the easiest to host,
dressage, jumping or eventing?
A: Eventers, definitely! Some high level show jumpers care a lot more about cleaning poo up at their own farms than when they visit other people’s farms.
Q: If you had to switch disciplines,
what would you choose?
A: After just saying how bad show jumpers are at cleaning up I would probably go and do that if I stopped eventing.
what would you do?
A: Probably do a lot more diving! There was a week after the last event where I contemplated selling it all and buying a boat.
Q: In hindsight, what would you have
done differently when setting up Wallaby Hill?
A: A lot! We never set it up to be a big equestrian centre, not that it’s huge by international standards. We didn’t plan to run big events so as a result it’s been done in a bit of a piecemeal fashion. If I’d known what we were going to do I would have made it a lot more cohesive and user friendly. It’s a combination of eventing at someone’s house and an equestrian facility!
Q: How many cross country
jumps are on the farm now?
A: A lot! Six levels of jumps plus portables for training, so between 200 and 300.
Q: Who designs the jumps? A: Mike Etherington-Smith started designing in 2016 when we upgraded to a 4* course. Mike has been phenomenal. Obviously COVID happened and Derek Di Grazia wasn’t able to come, so Mike is now designing remotely. It will have a few new things but run along similar lines to last year. Mike is very familiar with the course and writes very comprehensive notes about where he wants the jump and how he wants it to sit. Vince Roche then signs everything off for FEI approval.
Q: What does a typical non-comp
day look like?
A: Get up around 6am, feed the dogs, then go for a run. Feed myself. Then I usually ride a bit in the morning. I don’t ride as much as I used to. Stable rider Michelle Robson rides more of the young ones as she is better at that. Later in the day I do business stuff, bill paying, event planning and thinking up the next lot ideas and plans for the place. Wallaby Hill now gets hired by nonhorsey people so there are bookings to
MAIN: The 2019 Wallaby Hill Equestrian Extravaganza Showjumpers v Eventers event: Winner of the Best Dressed, Kirsty Douglas and Cushavon Crackerjack (Image by Stephen Mowbray). INSET: Alex and Parodie competing in the 2017 CCI4*-L at Wallaby Hill (Image by Stephen Mowbray).
be managed.
Q: How do you manage everything at
Wallaby Hill when you’re competing?
A: I'm lucky to have a very good team around me who help make the place run smoothly: Sophie, Michelle, James, Maddy, and Derek, who’s incredibly supportive.
Q: If your competitors did one thing
to make your life easier what would that be?
A: On the whole Eventers are very good and very respectful. It would be really nice if they could clean up the rubbish and the manure! We try and recycle but people chuck food into bins and leave the toilets in a mess.
Q: Excluding horses what other
pets do you have?
A: Maggie who’s a retired sniffer dog; Sammy the rescue Labrador who fell off a cliff; Fink, which is a really bad name for her, a red Labrador; and Mouse the rescue cat.
you wouldn’t normally during the COVID dramas?
A: The biggest difference is I’m doing more feed ups on the weekend due to not competing as much. This has allowed me to be around the young horses that I don’t usually interact with as much and I enjoy that a lot.
Q: Do you have a favourite horse
at the moment?
A: I definitely have a favourite. I try not to, and I pretend I don’t, but Pie, my old 4* mare is my favourite, I adore her. I have a massive soft spot for anything related to her. Then it alternates between Audi and Pimms, who I compete on mostly, depending on what I am doing with them.
Q: If you could steal anyone’s horse
which one would it be?
A: I really like my friend Carrie’s horse Tarraleah Kokoda. I love mares and she’s a tough and feisty mare, a cool jumper, and good on the flat.
from Aussie eventers?
A: Be a little friendlier. There’re a lot more events in England with a lot more riders competing. Horses don’t get off the truck except to compete. A lot of events will do all phases in one day so it’s not as social. As a consequence of not being as social, it can be a little unfriendly with everyone hiding in their trucks. The Australian eventing community is much more friendly, inclusive and supportive.
Q: What could Aussie eventers
learn from the English?
A: Because the numbers are greater, the Brits run a bigger enterprise. In the UK it feels like there’s a lot more scope to have a bigger event running business, but Australia could make things a bit more efficient. The longer distances make things harder here, but that often makes it a more social occasion.
Q: Is there a philosophy or
motto you live by?
A: I feel very lucky to have what I have and I feel that it’s nice to share that.