3 minute read
The GREATEST Showman
JESSICA OWERS
Caleb Degen cuts a familiar figure at Magic Millions, chiseled, deftly dressed and impeccably mannered. He is also tall, a fact that has had mixed results for him at the Gold Coast complex. “I’ve done just about everything with horses,” he says, amused. “But I don’t always get to lead the yearlings through the ring. I’ve been told I can make them look small.”
For a number of years, Degen has appeared at Magic Millions in various roles. He’s only 22, but he’s been a yearling handler and barn manager, and horseman on the ground during the charged environment of the January barrier draw on Surfers Paradise beach. He was there among the two-year-olds when the Patinack Farm Dispersal occurred, and he spent a year after school working for Attunga Stud, south of the Queensland border. “My next step from Attunga was supposed to be the Darley Flying Start program,” he says. “My boss, Brian Nutt, thought it would be the perfect fit for me, and it’s my fault it never happened because I was 19 and getting a little homesick, so I came back to the Gold Coast.” Degen is Gold Coast born and bred, originally from Southport but with an education that came from an equestrian college in Beaudesert. Growing up, he had seven or eight horses at a time, but nothing was handed to him. “I’ve always worked from a very young age,” he says. “I worked mornings, afternoons and weekends to pay for my horses, riding but mucking out seven days a week. In those years I was leaning towards veterinary science, or anything to do with equine husbandry. But I followed opportunities, I suppose.”
Degen walks through the Magic Millions complex with a confidence come from time among the boxes. When Patinack dispersed, he was among the ground staff, and recalls it was an exhilarating and interesting time. “That was my first experience in a sales environment, and I loved it. It was amazing to see the development of the horses. There’s just a huge amount of money and time and prep that goes into these animals to get them to the sale, and after months you see them sell in the ring for a million dollars. It’s something else.”
After a year with Attunga, Degen spent time playing polo in Perth, then London. While in London, he learned that the Gold Coast-based Australian Outback Spectacular was recruiting. He sent an application and thought nothing of it, and for a few months wondered what he might do when he returned home. But within days of his arrival, the show called him, interviewed him and hired him. “Initially, my role at the Australian Outback Spectacular was general stockman,” he says. “They saw that I could sit on a horse and that I could ride, but that evolved. Now most of my riding is based around the liberty horses and trick-riding.” Degen is modest. He won’t say that he is one of the lead performers in the show because his manners get the better of it. But that’s what he is. On each of the show’s five nights, he sings, acts and rides as the male lead. And outside of show hours, he is in the sand arena with his liberty horses, schooling the carefully selected few that perform without lunge lines or tack before hundreds of cheering people. “It’s my dream job,” he says. “If I could have worked out the perfect job for me, this would be it. I work with an eagle, I trick-ride, I sing in the show. I’m fulltime there, but I don’t feel like I have a job. I don’t think about hours because it’s where I want to be, and it’s what I want to be doing.” With this much life under his belt, you’d forgive Caleb Degen for arrogance or ego. He plies his trade under a spotlight, and soaks up cheers and claps almost every night of the week. But there’s no arrogance or ego anywhere, just the pleasantry of a kid raised in the saddle. “I understand the responsibility of having things, and having to work for them,” he says. “I guess horses will do that to you.”
