The Thoroughbred Winter 2009

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AUSTRALIA’S RACING AND BREEDING MAGAZINE

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WHAT A BLAST

Australia advances its world standing as Scenic Blast dominates the King’s Stand

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Inside

6 GLOBAL AMBITIONS Australia belongs on the turf’s growing stage: Editorial by Stephen Howell.

7 IN HIS ENTIRE GLORY Yeats and his “I was there” moment captivates Royal Ascot devotee Emma Berry.

8 FACE OF THE FUTURE The West’s young wonder, Jarrod Noske, is on “recovery road” after his unlucky break in Victoria, writes Andrew Eddy.

12 ORDINARY JOE, EXTRAORDINARY STORY Joe Janiak doesn’t say much about his success with Takeover Target, but others do. Stephen Howell and Adrian Dunn report.

PUBLISHED BY: The Slattery Media Group MANAGING EDITOR: Geoff Slattery EDITOR: Stephen Howell CONTRIBUTING EDITOR: Danny Power ART DIRECTOR: Andrew Hutchison DESIGNERS: Joanne Mouradian, Beck Haskins

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PHOTO EDITORS: Natalie Boccassini,

Melanie Tanusetiawan PRODUCTION: Troy Davis, Stephen Lording

18 THE PROMISE

46 THE TEST PILOTS

OF BELLELUIA In the stable, in trials and back in the paddock, The Thoroughbred Magazine Club’s filly is a work in progress, writes Danny Power.

Peter Ryan gets up before dawn to watch the riders who put racehorses on the right track.

20 SONS OF GUNS Matt Stewart tells how famous father-son jockey combinations cope with having the same surname.

26 THE PERKS OF SUCCESS A lucky owner’s business and racecourse profit has roots in syndication, writes Steve Moran.

30 VOICES OF THE CUP

COMMERCIAL MANAGER:

CONTRIBUTORS:

David Alcosser, Emma Berry, Vince Caligiuri, David Callow, Bruno Cannatelli, Ben Collins, Mike Dillon, Adrian Dunn, Andrew Eddy, Scott Hollands, Neil Kearney, Martin King, Steve Moran, Cameron O’Brien, Eric O’Keefe, Hugh Routledge, Peter Ryan, Slickpix, Matt Stewart.

PEAK SEASON A rare stake-money century has the trainer wanting more, reports Stephen Howell.

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56 MINING THE MOMENTS Eric O’Keefe enjoys the Triple Crown ride with American jockey of the moment, Calvin Borel.

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58 THE GROUND BREAKER Mike Dillon profiles a man who has made his mark on both sides of the Tasman.

Contributions welcome, visit thethoroughbred.com.au The Thoroughbred is published quarterly.

Next edition, Spring 2009

66 FIRST-SEASON SIRES The Thoroughbred promotes new stallions at stud in a special promotion by Danny Power.

32 KING HOLDS COURT Steven King has ridden the best against the best over two decades. He opens up to Ben Collins.

The man who runs Darley in Australia for Sheikh Mohammed talks with Stephen Howell.

Kathryn and Craig Durden open up their stable to Neil Kearney.

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Karla Bunney, karlab@slatterymedia.com

52 JOHN MOORE’S

Eric O’Keefe takes The Thoroughbred behind the scenes of perhaps the most moving in a century and a half of Melbourne Cups.

38 THEIR HOME TRACK

Tanya Fullarton, tanyaf@slatterymedia.com

THE WRITERS:

Stephen Howell is the editor of The Thoroughbred Danny Power is the editor of Racing In Australia and a senior staff writer for The Slattery Media Group

78 PRIVILEGED POSITION

Emma Berry, a writer who lives in Newmarket, England, is The Thoroughbred’s UK correspondent Ben Collins is a senior staff writer for The Slattery Media Group, and the author of numerous books

80 THE CALLER AND HIS DISCIPLES John Tapp lends his name and gives some advice, writes Stephen Howell.

Mike Dillon is a leading racing writer in New Zealand Adrian Dunn is chief racing writer on the Herald Sun Andrew Eddy is chief racing writer on The Age

43 BETTING TO WIN

Neil Kearney is a Melbourne-based television and print journalist

THE PINHOOKERS Danny Power gets an inside look at a group intent on making a go of American buy-to-sell knowledge.

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Australia’s Scenic Blast is out in front in the Group 1 King’s Stand Stakes at Royal Ascot.

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EDITORIAL

Global ambitions Royal Ascot demonstrates that, in a shrinking world, Australian racing belongs on the turf’s growing stage – here and there.

S

pending five nights watching the Royal Ascot meeting in June – even more so than the one night in May watching Singapore’s big races, and the one in April for Hong Kong’s, and the one in March with Dubai’s World Cup meeting – brought home how much the racing world is shrinking. We are now able to watch, and compete in, race meetings anywhere, any time.

Australia had runners at all these carnivals, but the royal meeting is special because of its tradition and England’s racing heart, and our link with, even development from, such tradition and heart.

And how important it is to have a rack to hang our hat on, as we have had with our sprinters, from the pacesetter Choisir (King’s Stand, 1000m, and Golden Jubilee Stakes, 1200m, in 2003) to the iconic Takeover Target (King’s Stand in 2006), to Miss Andretti (King’s Stand in 2007), to Scenic Blast (King’s Stand this year).

Takeover Target missed his planned fourth consecutive run in the Golden Jubilee because of an elevated temperature, but his

6 THE THOROUGHBRED

rags-to-riches relationship with trainer Joe Janiak remains one of the turf’s great stories (see Page 12).

But on day three of Royal Ascot, midway between the first-day success of Scenic Blast and the final-day nonappearance of Takeover Target (when the local Art Connoisseur held off the American Cannonball, another local Lesson In Humility, the South African JJ The Jet Plane and Hong Kong’s Australian-bred Sacred Kingdom), Yeats won his fourth straight Gold Cup, at 4000m the world’s longest Group 1 flat race.

That he is Irish-bred, trained and owned was irrelevant to the largely English crowd. He is their hero and, at eight years of age, he had demolished the opposition in a race that is 202 years old and on what has become his ‘home’ turf. The merits of the win can be debated elsewhere, but Emma Berry, The Thoroughbred’s UK correspondent, adores Yeats and tells what the performance means to her, on Page 7.

UK racing journalists variously described Royal Ascot this year as “cosmopolitan”,

“a place to measure global standards” and a “confluence of racing culture and style”.

Irish invaders have made the meeting their own for decades, but for the first time an American took some of the headlines – Californian trainer Wesley Ward won races with two-year-olds Strike That Tiger and Jealous Again, and ran second with Cannonball.

“This just proves that if you get a horse right on the day, it doesn’t matter if they are running in Australia, China or anywhere, as the Australian horse (Scenic Blast) showed,” Ward said on At The Races, whose coverage was shown on Australian pay-TV. True, but it remains harder to get visiting horses right because of the many adjustments associated with travel and settling in, and the differences of racing and training culture.

‘ If those horses

win over there, it’s better for our markets here.

’

Ward’s success and the international coverage it received have the English preparing for more runners from the US, just as Choisir’s breakthrough six years ago drove the Australian challenge.

Other European countries (France, Germany, Italy) have long been part of the English carnival diet; the sprinter dubbed the ‘Greek Freak’ (Ialysos, 12th in the Golden Jubilee) was there this year in the hands of Newmarketbased Luca Cumani, who has prepared the runners-up (Purple Moon and Bauer) in the past two Melbourne Cups; and Hungary’s super quick Overdose (yes, he is the ‘Budapest Bullet’) would have been there, and favourite, if not injured.

And could Singapore’s emerging sprinter Rocket Man go to Ascot next year, after a shot at Australia’s or Japan’s sprinting riches?

Or a Japanese horse? Japan has had runners in the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe (one, Deep Impact, third in 2006, was so heavily backed by the thousands of Japanese who attended that pari-mutuel betting was distorted and the horse started long odds-

PHOTO EMMA BERRY

WORDS STEPHEN HOWELL

ON TRACK: Race rider Jay Ford (in red) on Takeover Target and trainer Dan Morton on Scenic Blast put the Australian sprinters through their paces on the July course at Newmarket.

on); Japan’s best mare, Vodka, ran seventh in the Dubai Duty Free in February; and the country’s stayers raced in Victoria in the spring of 2005 and 2006 (Delta Blues won the 2006 Melbourne Cup in a head-bobber from stablemate Pop Rock). The Japanese have not been seen since because of the equine influenza outbreak of 2007 bringing stricter quarantine restrictions.

Australia will be represented at Ascot next year, whether the runner is trained by an Australian, or is with a leading European stable; as Haradasun was when he won the Group 1 Queen Anne (1600m) last year for Coolmore to show his credentials as a shuttle stallion. Or Starcraft when he won Group 1 races at Newmarket and Longchamp in 2005.

Coolmore’s great rival Darley is taking this ‘trained overseas’ path, announcing in June that nine of Darley’s best Australian horses would be transferred

by Sheikh Mohammed to his Dubai stables for the season that culminates in the next World Cup meeting at the new Meydan course in March. Depending on their performances there, they will continue to England.

Stallion potential is the key to the Darley plan – four are entires (Sousa, Time Thief, Fravashi and Marching).

Aichi, Caymans, El Cambrio, Desuetude and Imvula are geldings, racing for the glory.

There has been criticism, with Sydney commentator Ken Callander saying the Darley plan was a “raping of our top-class horses for the pleasure of the sheikhs on the other side of the world”.

Such a view is narrow-minded.

It might weaken some fields, but 200 more horses come through the Darley team each year. The exporting of a small band will only strengthen Australia’s reputation on the world stage.

Hall of Fame trainer Lee Freedman, who campaigned Miss Andretti overseas, has lost Time Thief (B c 3, Redoute’s Choice-Procrastinate, by Jade Hunter (USA)) from Victoria to the travelling batch. He said: “It’s always disappointing when you lose a nice horse overseas, but the benefits with Darley far outweigh that situation as far as I’m concerned. It’s showcasing our horses overseas and if it works out in a positive fashion and those horses win over there, it’s better for our markets here.”

The Australian breeding industry, with 10,000 breeders and 28,000 broodmares, is said to be the second biggest in the world behind the US, offering the most diverse and affordable bloodlines.

Leading breeder, Arrowfield’s John Messara, said the move gave Australian racing the chance to promote itself worldwide, as leading athletes had done in other sports.

Of course, travel is not all one way. The sheikh, through Godolphin, and the English and Irish will continue to look to our spring with their stayers.

Travel, as they say, broadens the mind. It also raises Australian racing’s profile. And has huge potential for profit.

YEATS, IN HIS ENTIRE GLORY The stayer’s fourth Gold Cup was pure gold, writes Emma Berry.

Nine runners circled the paddock before the Group 1 Gold Cup (4000 metres) at Royal Ascot in June, but all eyes were fixed on the rippling dark brown mass of muscle that is Yeats, as the minutes ticked away to his assault on history.

Hearts lurched as Johnny Murtagh stoked the 6/4 favourite into the lead around the home turn, asking him to stride out once more up that famous straight. Had he gone too soon? Would the fastfinishing Patkai reel him in?

Not a chance. For this is the race Yeats (B h 2001, Sadler’s Wells (USA)-Lyndonville (IRE), by Top Ville (IRE)) has made his own since 2006 when racing returned to the Queen’s racecourse after a costly facelift.

A record win No. 4 was comprehensive.

Opinion may be divided over changes to this most historic of English courses, but there is one emotion that unites racing fans across Britain and Ireland: we all love Yeats.

The Ascot faithful has grown used to the idea that, in Australia, speed is king, the victories of Choisir (2003), Takeover Target (2006), Miss Andretti (2007) and Scenic Blast (this year) a proud testament to that maxim. But for the home team, there’s just something about these stayers.

Yeats’ Melbourne Cup flop (seventh at 13/2 in 2006) doubtless gives Australians cause for scepticism, but on European turf he reigns supreme. His exquisite

physique exudes both the taut strength of a sprinter and the rangy athleticism of a Classic horse; his genetic imprint contains the same heady Sadler’s Wells-Top Ville cross as the imperious Montjeu; and his Group 1 wins in five consecutive seasons – as well as four Gold Cups in a row – stand him apart.

‘ Strappers

formed a guard of honour to usher him triumphant back to the stables

’

Add to this the fact that, at the age of eight, he is still entire, contending regularly with distractions that no longer turn the heads of his gelded rivals, and the conclusion must be that Yeats’ achievements, and that of his trainer Aidan O’Brien in honing him year after year, are outstanding.

The long, tearful ovation Yeats received on course after the latest win was touchingly echoed when strappers interrupted their care of other Ascot contenders to form a guard of honour to usher him triumphant back to the racecourse stables.

“Everyone here at Ascot today owns a piece of him,” said the BBC’s Australian-born race-caller Jim McGrath. The invisible badge that says ‘I was there’ will forever be worn with pride.

THE THOROUGHBRED 7

KID’S STUFF: Jarrad Noske, after tasting success in Melbourne on promising two-year-old Black Caviar.

YOUNG TALENT TIME

face of the future

As he puts a bad break behind him, and with possible weight problems ahead, there is little chance that apprentice jockey Jarrad Noske will ever take his burgeoning career for granted. WORDS ANDREW EDDY. PHOTO SLICKPIX

W

hen confirmation came that Jarrad Noske’s right wrist was broken and that he had to have sixeight weeks out of the saddle and away from stable life, the 16-year-old knew better than to make a fuss. Up to that point, in May, the Perth boy had enjoyed a wonderful start to 2009 as doors began to open for him in the lucrative eastern states. The bad break, which came after a horse he was riding at trackwork at

Caulfield for leading trainer Peter Moody reared and dumped him, caused him some distress, as did the timing of the incident.

Noske was on loan to Moody and was starting to get the feel of Melbourne racing.

He had notched five winners in a short time with Moody and his neat style and his thoughtful and respectful personality had caught the attention of good judges. Comparisons with Damien Oliver, the former Perth boy who came east to ride for Lee Freedman and became a champion jockey, were made.

THE THOROUGHBRED 9

But Noske did not sulk when he returned to his parents’ home in Perth after his wrist was put in a fibreglass brace. For if there is any 16-year-old who truly knows the pitfalls of riding horses, it is him – throughout his life, he has watched as his father Jeff dealt with injuries.

Said Jeff Noske: “I think I’ve broken every bone in my body at one time or another and Jarrad’s seen all that and he knows what he’s in for. There are many highs in this game, but he’s seen the lows as well and knows that injuries are something that happen no matter how much you plan and how careful you are.”

In 1983 – nearly 10 years before Jarrad was born – 18-yearold Jeff Noske was the leading rider in Perth until he fell heavily at the finish of a race at Ascot. It was eight years before he could pick up the pieces of his career.

FACT FILE JARRAD NOSKE Born: October 2, 1992 First ride: Classy Business, Northam (December 6, 2007) First winner: Blow Out, Geraldton (January 1, 2008), at 20th ride First city winner: Superscenic, Ascot in Perth (April 19, 2008) First Melbourne winner: Equable, Moonee Valley (February 20, 2009) 2007-2008: 35 wins from 507 rides 2008-2009: 61 wins from 657 rides Total: 96 wins from 1164 rides

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“My ankle was crushed and the foot turned around in the opposite direction,” he said. “They tried to pin it, but most of the bone was completely crushed.”

After almost two years on the sidelines, Noske made a brief comeback but his ankle again collapsed. “I had a course of pain-killers every day and the ankle just gave way. The bones in my foot were dying because no blood was getting down there, and I had another bone graft.”

For the next six years, Noske worked in the building trade to make ends meet, but always with an eye to returning to the saddle. He did so successfully, with Group 1 wins on Voile D’or in the 1999 WA Derby and 2000 SA Oaks, until weight problems in 2004 forced him out for a year before he hung up his riding boots in 2006. He rode more than 600 winners.

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To say Jarrad Noske was born and bred to ride is to understate his passion for horses. Apart from having a jockey as a father, Noske’s mother Jodie (nee Prins) was also a registered rider in WA; and Noske was riding ponies not long after he learned to walk. But just riding horses was never enough.

“He’s absolutely horse mad,” Jeff Noske said of Jarrad. “He had a season fox hunting and he even rode in the Blackwood three-day marathon in the south of WA and is looking to ride in another marathon in Queensland sometime in the future.”

At the annual Blackwood marathon, Noske was the equestrian rider in his team, which also had a runner, a canoeist, a swimmer and a cyclist. Noske’s contribution to the team was to ride 16 kilometres through bush and alongside the Blackwood River.

PHOTO HOLLANDS-PHOTO@IINET.NET.AU

ASCOT ACE: Noske wins on Spitfi re Ace for trainer Darren McAuliffe at Ascot in Perth in April.

YOUNG TALENT TIME

‘ If I can be half

as good as Damien (Oliver) I’d be happy.

’

Noske has already had to change his style in the short time he has ridden in races. “The new whip rules have made me change my style to more a hands-andheels approach a bit, I suppose, but it’s something that is still developing,” he said.

The obvious comparisons with Oliver do not faze him. “I know there have been many good jockeys come to Melbourne from Perth over the years, but I don’t feel any pressure to live up to them. I mean, if I can be half as good as Damien (Oliver) I’d be happy.”

In February this year, after riding his 43rd metropolitan winner and while sitting second on the Perth jockeys’ ladder behind William Pike while apprenticed to his trainer mother, Noske received the call from the East. It was the offer of a three-month stint with one of the country’s best trainers, Moody. He

jumped at the chance. Jeff Noske said: “He was over the moon, and so were we that he could get such a great opportunity.”

Noske’s fi rst ride in Melbourne was on February 20, at the Moonee Valley night meeting in an apprentices-onlyy race on the Gerald Ryan-trained ed Equable. Ryan had heard good d things about the teenager and d was pleased when his name was drawn out to ride the moody,, but talented, four-year-old.

“He’s not that easy a horse to o ride and he did a very good job to get him home,” Ryan said..

“He had a nice draw and things ings panned out for him, but I liked the way he summed things up and made the most of a good run in the race.

“He seemed a nice kid and very sensible. Everyone I spokee to in Perth reckons he’s by far the best apprentice over there and probably the best kid sincee Damien (Oliver) and, although h he’s got a long, long way to go, from what I’ve seen he’ll certainly make the grade.”

If injuries are part of a jockeys’ lot, so are bad luck and poor form. And so, too, is the possibility that nature may ay intervene – while dedication n and an nd talent are vital to success as a jockey, so too is a light weight. h Noske realises that he may outgrow his chosen profession.

He pointed out that he was bred d to be of below-average height, but he already stands about 170cm and, before his injury, weighed 50-51kg.

His spell on the sidelines meant he could not sustain any worthwhile upper-body work, and after a two-week holiday in Broome he weighed 56kg.

Getting back down to the early 50s will test his mettle. “It is something that I am aware of and so I am doing lots of walking and other exercise to get my weight down,” he said.

Brace off, Noske anticipated a July return to track work and, then, race riding in Perth

IN-HOUSE LESSONS

1

BEANBAG RIDER: six-year-old Jarrad Noske gears up for beanbag tuition at home.

2

STYLE ADVICE: family friend Josh Rodder suggests Jarrad needs some saddle work.

3

PHOTOS COURTESY OF JOSH RODDER

“For as long as I can remember I’ve always wanted to be a jockey,” Noske said. “Mum and Dad have always had ponies at home and I’ve been riding them for most of my life, but when I was about 13, I suppose, I started to go fox hunting and riding cross country and that taught me a lot more about riding and about horses.”

Before he went to high school, Noske became a jockey’s valet at the Perth tracks of Ascot and Belmont to further his thoroughbred education. “He’d sit there and watch all the jockeys and listen to their comments, and he just soaked it all up,” his father said. “He went through stages where he tried to ride like Oliver, like (Darren) Gauci and like Shane Dye, but I think the style that he likes best is that of the Rawiller brothers (Nash and Brad), and that’s what he’s based his own style around.’’

SITTING SITT TING PRETTY: TY llesson sson learned, Jarrad is sitting pretty, whip at the ready

would help the weight battle ahead of an August return to Moody in Melbourne.

Jeff Noske said that his son was aware awa are that he might have only a short shor rt time in thoroughbred racing.

“He’s worried about that at the “He e’s not wor moment. mo oment. He’s dedicated to keeping hiss weight down do and making the most opportunities.” mo ost of his op those opportunities One of tho was wa as presented to Noske when he was booked tto ride two-year-old w filly l Black Caviar Cav at her debut at Flemington in April. He had never Fl ridden ri idden the horse ho in work and was oonly vaguely aware that the Bel was highly regarded Esprit filly wa E stable. aaround the st “Pete didn’t didn’ tell me too much (Black Caviar) other about her (Bla thought she had the than he tho thoug ability ab bility to win w if she could handle the th he straight course,” the young rider was just awesome. rid der said. “She “ Itt was a big thrill to be on her and an nd to ride down the Flemington (Black Caviar made it sstraight.” (B two for Noske when she ttwo from tw won at Caulfi w Cau eld in May.) Moody ssaid: “I thought she was pretty bom bombproof and that she would give him a nice kick along because he he’d worked hard and was doing aall the right things. looking forward to him “I’m look coming back bac and watching him progress. He’s H got the ability and the right at attitude to succeed. It’s all there for for him. In the short time he w was here he impressed wa me with his h talent talen and because he was prepared prrepared to work hard.

I first saw over the summer w him ov carnival in Perth and (Perth trainer) Danny Morton had D M recommended recomm mended him hi to me as a kid on the t way, so s I was happy to give him m a chance.” chanc Jarrad the Jarra ad knows that t timing of his inju injury will make Melbourne place to Melbou urne a tougher toug ride this “It’ll th his time around. aro be coming com ming up to the spring and there th here won’t be b many opportunities opporrtunities to use my claim (1.5kg),” (1 5kg he said. “(But) I’m pretty much desperate to get desp back there.”

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MATES: Joe Janiak and Takeover Target, out for a stroll in Newmarket.

A MAN AND HIS HORSE

Joe story ORDINARY

extraORDINARY

The great thing about the Takeover Target tale is that it tells itself. That’s why it is such a good story, because there is no embellishment from the man driving it. WORDS STEPHEN HOWELL

PHOTO EMMA BERRY

O

wner-trainer Joe Janiak often walks up and kisses Takeover Target when he comes back to the winner’s stall, and that action speaks much more eloquently than Janiak does to the media.

Don’t for one minute think that he doesn’t cooperate.

He does. Always. But it is with a combination of shyness and directness, and that means that the answers are short and, simply, answers. There is no pointing the interviewer in the direction the interviewee wants to go.

In that way he is no, say, Gai Waterhouse, no David Hayes. That is, someone groomed to talk up her or his horse in words that match the talker’s status, professionally and commercially, in the racing world.

Ask Janiak (62) how Takeover Target went and you’ll get, “Good. I was happy with that.” You won’t get, “This is the best-bred, best-performed, bestlooking, most valuable horse in NSW (or Victoria, or Australia), and that was the best win you’ll ever see.”

So, the book that is waiting only on its fi nal chapters – and the movie that is mooted – will be about the horse and the man who made him what he is. People will read about – and see – the relationship unfolding; they will not get Joe on Joe, nor Joe on Takeover, nor Joe on Jay (Ford, the rider in all bar two of the great sprinter’s races).

When Takeover Target won his latest Australian race, the Group 1 The Goodwood (1200 metres) at Morphettville in Adelaide in May, The Thoroughbred asked Janiak to talk about how he felt about the horse.

“Oh mate, he’s just an honest, gutsy horse.

That’s all you can say.” Or all you feel you can say, for it is not a knockabout bloke’s way to wax lyrical.

The “thank-you mate” kiss had come earlier as Ford had jumped off the horse’s back in front of an adoring Adelaide crowd, and had been followed at the presentation with a comment and a question from the trainer: “Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you enjoyed that race as much as I did. How good was that, eh?”

T H E T H O R O U G H B R E D 13

A MAN AND HIS HORSE

Their cheering answered his question. And, on leaving the course, so did a handshake from a racegoer, a bloke about Joe’s age – and one of scores Janiak had obliged with a shake or an autograph or a photograph during the afternoon.

“Magnificent Joe.” said the fan. “Made the day.”

“Cheers, mate,” replied the trainer, happy to put out his hand.

The “fairytale” that has prompted this story might just turn out to be ranked second behind only Phar Lap’s legend in Australian turf annals. Briefly it is: having trained bush horses for some 30 years, Janiak, living in a caravan on the racecourse at Queanbeyan and driving cabs in Canberra to pay the bills, buys an unwanted, unsound and erratic gelding at a dispersal sale for $1250 plus GST. After initial problems, including an accident when TT rears in a tie-up stall at Queanbeyan and almost tears JJ’s head off above his left ear, Janiak trains him to win 21 of 40 races despite leg problems, with eight Group 1 successes at home and abroad, while earning more than $6 million and the respect of those within the industry and the admiration of those looking on.

Janiak sees the world, including his mother’s birthplace, Krakow in Poland, and has afternoon tea with Queen Elizabeth when at Ascot, where he puts on top hat and tails. He buys stables at Coffs Harbour in Northern NSW. He remains his own man.

And, at Morphettville, he says of Takeover Target, whom he calls Archie: “He just doesn’t like getting beat; he picks himself up and has another go.”

Is Janiak like his horse. “Oh well, I’ve had kicks in the guts at times, picked meself (sic) up.”

But what about the time he had to have 30 stitches above his ear. Didn’t that affect how he felt about him?

“No, no negative feelings. Just thought I’d better find out what makes this horse tick and treat him with kindness, and I think that’s the main reason why he’s turned himself around.

“I don’t expect too much from the horse ... every time I send him around it amazes me what he does.”

How long can he go on? “I don’t know. You’d have to ask the horse that. The way he’s racing, you’d say he’s got another 12 months left in him.”

This was said after the rising 10-year-old had just won the second of two Group 1 races over 1200 metres (the other was the T.J. Smith Stakes (1200m) at Randwick in April) in two starts this campaign, and before his flop on a hard surface in the KrisFlyer (1200m) at Kranji later in May – he had won the race the previous year – and before his fourth Royal Ascot campaign came to nought when he was scratched from the Golden Jubilee because of an elevated temperature.

What about when that inevitable day comes and Janiak retires him? “He’ll spend probably a little bit of time at Living Legends in the warmer weather down there (at the retirement home for champion horses, near Melbourne airport), some time in promotion work, and then I’ll ride him myself (on the beach at Coffs Harbour). He’ll have a good retirement.”

14 T H E T H O R O U G H B R E D

Joe and Takeover Target are an amazing act.

They keep coming back and they keep delivering Self-effacing, Joe Janiak doesn’t talk up his achievements with his great sprinter Takeover Target.

The fact file lists them, but it is those who know him and work with him who reveal more of the man and his horse, a relationship in the mould of Tommy Woodcock and Phar Lap. INTERVIEWS ADRIAN DUNN Sydney-based Jay Ford, who has ridden Takeover Target in all except two of his races: “I was just starting out as an apprentice, back in 2000, when Joe rang me and offered me a ride. He’s still the same old Joe nine years later. He’s happy-going and loves going to the pub and having a drink; he’s very relaxed and very laid-back. When I first rode Takeover Target all Joe said to me was, ‘He’ll just win,’ and he did, by seven lengths. Joe doesn’t really give me that many instructions. We have a chat and a look at the race beforehand and make our plans, but there is no great emphasis on instructions.

He hasn’t given me a ‘cook’ after a race and hopefully we never go down that path. He’s just so relaxed, so calm and such a quiet person. And, you can tell that with his care and love for

‘Takeover has

become more than just a horse, he’s family.

’

horses. He pretty much spends 24/7 with ‘Takeover’. They’re almost inseparable, they’re the best of buddies. I’ve got no doubt that if it hadn’t been for Joe the horse wouldn’t have reached the heights he has. That one-onone care and understanding Joe has with ‘Takeover’ is quite remarkable; there’s not another trainer going around that could have done any better job than what Joe has. For what the horse has done, it takes a pretty special person to train and get the best out of the horse year

PHOTO BRUNO CANNATELLI

ANOTHER GROUP 1: Takeover Target (Jay Ford) wins The Goodwood at Morphettville in May.

after year, especially given the horse has been plagued with injury problems. Everyone helps out, everyone plays their role in it, but at the end of the day I really think that bond they have between horse and owner, well, I haven’t seen anything similar to that and I think that is reflected on the racetrack. That bond has seen ‘Takeover’ become more than just a horse, he’s part of Joe’s family. My relationship with Joe is more than just a jockey riding for a trainer. I think we’ve formed a great friendship. Joe has given me such a great opportunity to be associated with such an amazing racehorse and for that I’ll be eternally indebted.”

Nash Rawiller, stable rider for Gai Waterhouse in Sydney and winner of the Group 1 T.J. Smith Stakes (1200m) on Takeover Target at Randwick on April 18:

“I was fortunate enough to get to know Joe over a few beers in England when I was there to ride Bentley Biscuit (in 2007) and Joe, of course, had Takeover Target. I really got to know him pretty well. When the ride came up (in the T.J. Smith) the thing that I noticed most when I went down to ride the horse in trackwork was the affi nity Joe had with him. More or less he would saddle it up or bring it out of its box without a head collar on, it was more like a pet dog.

Each time Joe went to pull a foot up, the horse would lift it before Joe touched it. It amazed me. I know strappers say that some horses get to that stage, but it takes a really smart horse to take it to that next level. Joe is really just a down-to-earth, bloody top bloke. He’s not a big noting type, he just goes about his business. When I was lucky enough to ride Takeover Target, Joe pretty much knew what was going to happen. It was just like another day at the races for him.

The better the horse the easier they are to train, but where you have to take your hat off to Joe is the way he’s been able to get an

extra five, six or even seven years out of that horse. It’s incredible when you think he was written off before he even raced and here he is winning races all around the world. Only top or great trainers can do that. It doesn’t matter if they have one or 50 horses, what Joe has done with that horse is an amazing effort.”

Canberra trainer Frank Cleary, who won the 1999 Golden Slipper with Catbird and was second in 1992 with Clan O’Sullivan, the Black Opal winner: “I’ve known Joe going back when we were both in our teens. I had a good horse in the 1970s called Wayne’s Bid and I remember Joe saying to me, ‘Gee you are lucky to have a good horse like that’.

He’s always been a great mate.

I remember him battling around the picnics. He had this horse Synwood who won a couple at the picnics and I think he ended up calling his stables Synwood Lodge. He was always a bloke that was so interested in the horses and that was when he was driving a taxi and he also

had a dry cleaning shop right next to the supermarket. We would always catch up for a chat. I remember I had gone to Sydney to train and I was talking to my son Joseph, who’s a good friend of Joe’s boy Ben, and he said ‘Joe reckons he’s got a horse that goes all right’ and it’s in at Queanbeyan. Goes all right? It pissed in, won by

‘Joe reckons he’s

got a horse that goes all right

’

seven. It was Takeover Target’s fi rst start. A lot of blokes go fi shing, a lot of blokes go to the football, but Joe’s pastime is his horses and he hasn’t changed. What you see is what you get. The horse may have made him more world-wise and street-wise, but he’s still a guy that likes to catch up with his mates for a drink and a chat.

Jamie and Arthur Pantos, who part-owned Strawberry Road, came from Queanbeyan and about 12 months ago they, Joe

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A MAN AND HIS HORSE

PHOTO EMMA BERRY

He pretty much keeps to himself.

He spends a lot of time with his horse and apart from having a drink at the local, we don’t see much of him.”

CAP THIS: Takeover Target plays with his mate Joe Janiak at Geoff Wragg’s Newmarket stables.

and I caught up for lunch out of town. It was a terrific lunch as we talked about how lucky we had been, but when it came time to go we couldn’t get a taxi. We ended up in the back of a wine truck, we opened a bottle of red and drank it on the way home and Joe said can you believe all the money our horses have won and here we are sitting in the back of a wine truck.”

Hall Of Fame trainer Lee Freedman, winner of six Melbourne premierships and more than 120 Group 1 races, including five Melbourne Cups, four Caulfield Cups and four Golden Slippers: “When I took Miss Andretti to Royal Ascot, I found Joe a really good guy to travel with. When Miss Andretti won the King’s Stand, Joe was the first there in the car park to celebrate with us.

He was there for a few beers and joined in the sing-a-long and when we couldn’t win on the

fi nal day, we barracked for Joe and Takeover Target.

It was just a great relationship, I just really got on with him. He pretty much keeps to himself, but he’s a genuine guy. He puts an enormous amount of time and effort into that horse and whatever he’s done it has worked. There’s no doubt he’s done a great job and carried himself very well.”

Recently retired trainer Geoff Wragg, who trained the 1983 Epsom Derby winner Teenoso and who puts up Takeover Target at Newmarket, where he still lives in the stable house: “Joe and Takeover Target are an amazing act. They keep coming back and they keep delivering.

Joe does such a marvellous job with the horse given what he’s been through. I can understand why they’re writing a book and thinking of making a film about him. He doesn’t say much, he goes about his business and the results are there for everyone to see. It’s just an amazing story, one of the great stories of the turf.”

Trish Wragg, wife of Geoff: “Joe’s great. We’re delighted to have Joe back each year and Joe seems to be delighted to be here.

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Leading Perth trainer Fred Kersley, who had the champion Northerly, winner of nine Group 1 races including the Cox Plate (2001, 2002), the Australian Cup (2001, 2003) and the Caulfield Cup (2002): “He’s an interesting bloke, a very good showman. I reckon there’s a life after racehorses for him. I reckon Joe could probably survive a nuclear holocaust. He was pretty good for Perth racing when he brought Takeover Target over last year. Takeover Target is one of the great stories of Australian racing. It’s another Sea Biscuit story.”

Jim McGrath, an Australian, who is a racecaller and a journalist in England: “Initially, there was a novelty value to Joe because he was the taxi driver from Queanbeyan – that’s how he was presented to press and public. He was very much viewed as the underdog in that first year (2006, when Takeover Target raced at Ascot).

Soon, it became obvious to all

‘He doesn’t say

much, he goes about his business and the results are there for everyone to see.

’

the (English and European) trainers that Joe was no fool. He may have been a taxi driver, but he knew his horse backwards and he earned the respect of his peers. He’s brought this horse here year after year against the very best sprinters and he kept on coming up.

www.thethoroughbred.com.au

It’s been quite a phenomenal training performance to do what he’s done. Although Choisir had paved the way, Takeover Target made people here sit up and take notice. There was a ripple of controversy when (English trainer) Mark Johnston raised the issue about Takeover Target and what happened in Hong Kong (where the horse was withdrawn before the International Sprint at Sha Tin in December 2006 because of traces of a prohibited substance, given as a travel relaxant, in his system), but the horse has always been given the OK to run over here. Joe’s become a regular at a pub called the White Lion in Newmarket and all the locals love him and Joe is very amenable. The bottom line is Joe fits in well and is accepted. He has that persona that makes it easy to like him.”

Leading Caulfield trainer Peter Moody, who campaigned Magnus against Takeover Target in Singapore and England last year: “Joe is one of those old school trainers. He keeps pretty much to himself, plays his cards pretty close to his chest and doesn’t give much away. We got on really well when we were together for Royal Ascot.

He’s a nice, easy-going bloke who doesn’t mind a drink with you, but he’s straight back to work the next morning. I didn’t know Joe before Takeover Target, but no one really did. He’s done a terrific job with the horse, he obviously has a special affinity with the horse and the way he has managed the horse and prolonged his career is a credit to him.”

Ray Murrihy, Racing NSW’s chief steward: “The joke with my panel is that Chris Polglase, one of my panel, was an official down in Canberra and had a race named after him. The first race Takeover Target won was the Chris Polglase

Maiden. That was the first time I had ever heard of Joe Janiak and he’s turned out to be one of the great racing stories – a battling bush trainer with a discarded horse who makes good. I don’t know of too many better stories in my time. A battling trainer, living in a caravan with a horse that had troubles. It started in the country here and took him to Royal Ascot, quite amazing. One of the things that I have to compliment Joe on in our dealings – and we took away a Villiers Handicap from him (in January 2008 when stewards upheld a protest from Honor In War’s jockey Hugh Bowman after Takeover Target had won by a nose) and it was the third leg of a triple crown – is that he’s very much been the same person and quite respectful of authorities. I think he has been a credit to the racing industry.”

John McIntyre, chairman of the National Rugby League’s Canberra Raiders: “I can remember well before Joe had ‘Takeover’ that you would fill up for fuel at the Ampol service station in Crawford Street in Queanbeyan and out the back Joe would be there with his good

mate Kenny Perrin and they would put a stubby in your hand as soon as you walked in. We would often have a beer there and that became a ritual every Thursday afternoon. Around that time I was bookmaking and I got to know Joe around the tracks.

Joe was more of a hobby trainer at that time, but one thing about Joe is that he’s never changed.

He’s still the same Joe Janiak.

People say anyone could train ‘Takeover’, but I disagree. I don’t think any other trainer could concentrate on that horse as well as Joe. He’s been responsible for the success of that horse and the story that comes out of that is a pretty great and talented horseman.”

Champion Sydney trainer Gai Waterhouse, winner of five Sydney premierships and more than 90 Group 1 races (from the Gai Waterhouse Diary on gaiwaterhouse.com.au): “No one likes winning Group 1s more than yours truly, but I must say I was over the moon

PORTRAIT OF A CHAMPION: Takever Target, from The Thoroughbred’s photographic collection honouring champions of the turf.

Visit www.portraitofachampion.com.au

for him and his son Ben and for the racing public when Takeover Target won the TJ (Smith in April). Anyone at Randwick would have witnessed the scene of the crowd standing to their feet and wildly clapping the old horse. Rob (Waterhouse, Gai’s husband) and I have got to know Joe over the last few years on our trips to Royal Ascot – he’s a wonderfully unassuming man who loves his horse, enjoys the camaraderie of racing and loves to travel. Wherever he goes the racing public will flock to the track to witness their Joe and Takeover Target. Both are true champions in real Aussie style.”

Takeover Target’s chiropractor Gary Christou, who usually travels with the horse: “This horse was a reject, bought at a reject sale and down and out on his luck.

And so was Joe. And so, weren’t they perfectly suited when God decided to put ’em together?

And from where they’ve both come from, look at them where they are. You couldn’t get a more tailor-made fairytale than that if you put it together in a Hollywood script. But it’s true.”

TAKEOVER TARGET’S RECORD Bay gelding 1999, Celtic Swing (GB)-Shady Stream, by Archregent (CAN) 40 starts for 21 wins, six seconds, four thirds $6,019,400 prizemoney Trainer: Joe Janiak (Queanbeyan, then Coffs Harbour) Group 1 wins (8) Salinger Stakes (1200m, Flemington, 2004) Lightning Stakes (1000m, Flemington, 2005) Newmarket Handicap (1200m, Flemington, 2006) Sprinters Stakes (1200m, Nakayama, Japan, 2006) Doomben 10,000 (1350m, Doomben, 2007) KrisFlyer International Sprint (1200m, Kranji, Singapore, 2008) T.J. Smith (1200m, Randwick, 2009) The Goodwood (1200m, Morphettville, 2009) Other overseas wins Group 2 King’s Stand Stakes (1000m) at Royal Ascot, England, in 2006 Group 2 Centaur Stakes (1200m) at Chukyo, near Nagoya, Japan, in 2006

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YOUR CLUB

The promise of

Belleluia Trial runs show our filly is shaping up strongly for her race debut in the late spring. WORDS DANNY POWER PHOTOS SEAN GARNSWORTHY

T

he Thoroughbred Magazine Club’s filly Belleluia is spelling in preparation for her race debut in the new season. She has shown tremendous promise in training at Cranbourne, and the club is very much looking forward to her return to trainer Robbie Griffiths’s stables.Griffiths said he planned to prepare the filly

to begin her racing career as a three-year-old late in October or early November. “She can have a late spring and summer campaign, which should set her up for some of the better races for fillies in the second half of the season in 2010,” he said.

Belleluia (Bel Esprit-Song Of The Sun, by Desert Sun (GB)), a tall, leggy fi lly, has come a long way since Griffiths inspected her last winter at her birthplace, Eliza Park, Kerrie.

“Then she was an unbroken yearling, hairy and very immature, but what I really liked about her was that she was a very athletic fi lly with a big stride,” he said.

It is that athleticism and good movement that have become a trademark of Belleluia in her two preparations with Griffiths at Cranbourne. The fi lly showed natural speed when he galloped her at the end of her fi rst preparation in

ON TRIAL: Belleluia (Ivan Culliver), right, enjoys her 800-metre trial at Cranbourne.

BE PART OF THE BELLELUIA EXPERIENCE Let Belleluia become “your horse” through The Thoroughbred Magazine Club.

Every subscriber to The Thoroughbred magazine automatically becomes a member of The Thoroughbred Magazine Club, which races Belleluia, on lease from Eliza Park.

Our aim is for our members to experience all the fun and excitement of racehorse ownership without the bills.

18 T H E T H O R O U G H B R E D

Apart from racing this outstanding filly, The Thoroughbred Magazine Club also aims to give its members an insight into all aspects of the thoroughbred industry – from the joy of breeding a foal in the Hunter Valley to the chill of early spring track gallops at Flemington. We want members of our club to have privileges that are not normally available to enthusiasts who may not have the wherewithal to own thoroughbreds or to reach

places of privilege. It’s an ambitious plan, and we hope to provide further benefits to our club members and subscribers, and appropriate charities. Join now to be involved with racing a superbly-bred racehorse, without the costs, but with all the fun. New subscribers are welcome at: thethoroughbred.com.au/club.

M A G A Z I N E

C L U B

THE FAMILY IS FIRING

the summer, but in her recently completed second preparation she showed in two impressive trial performances that she also has the competitive nature to be a serious racehorse.

Belleluia’s fi rst trial was an unofficial “ jump-out” from the gates at Cranbourne in May. The fi lly was ridden quietly by jockey Ivan Culliver before fi nishing the trial strongly to be just behind the placegetters.

A week later, on May 25, at the official trials over 800 metres, Belleluia showed good, tactical speed to follow a fast pace before “cuddling in” behind the three placegetters under a hold from Culliver in the dash to the line. The trial was won by Fivestar Lass, who ran 47.89 seconds, the second fastest 2YO trial of the morning.

“She’s a nice fi lly that will only keep improving,” Culliver said of Belleluia. “I really liked the last 100 metres of her trial as she wanted to get to the line.”

Griffiths said Belleluia had enough education for him to be more aggressive in her training when she returned to work later in July. “Next time in, we can start to establish what kind of racehorse she will be,” he said.

“While we know she has the speed, we will be able to work out her possible racing style – whether she is an on-pace runner or if she will prefer to get back and fi nish her races off.

“We also can determine what distance she will get over. She has natural speed – it comes from the double cross of Vain in her pedigree – but there is enough stamina in her pedigree

through her mother, who ran fi fth in the South Australian Oaks (2400m) to suggest that Belleluia might get over ground in time.”

Belleluia returned to Eliza Park to spell on May 27, two days after her trial. The fi lly can be expected to fi ll out and mature considerably during her six-to-eight-weeks break, before returning to be pre-trained at Eliza Park under the guidance of resident trainer Sue Ellis.

Belleluia is expected to return to Cranbourne in September, and The Thoroughbred Magazine Club will keep our members fully informed of her progress with news updates and trainer’s reports through access to a special members-only login on the website www.thethoroughbred. com.au/club.

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While Belleluia has been learning the ropes, other members of her in-form family have been making headlines, in particular, Belleluia’s three-quarter sister Black Caviar, a brilliant winner of her two starts, including the Listed Blue Sapphire Stakes (1200m), by six lengths, at Caulfield on May 2.

Like Belleluia, Black Caviar is by Eliza Park’s outstanding young sire Bel Esprit, who is having his best season that has included the Group 1 win of his daughter Bel Mer in the Robert Sangster Stakes (1200m) at Morphettville in March.

Belleluia is out of Song Of The Sun (by Desert Sun from Song Of Norway), whereas Black Caviar is from Helsinge, also by Desert Sun, but from Song Of Norway’s brilliant daughter Scandinavia.

Robbie Griffiths also trains the handy mare Midnight Blues (by Distant Music), who won strongly at Sandown in June. Midnight Blues, a three-time city winner, is a daughter of Midnight Sun, a Stakes-winning sister to Song Of The Sun. Another offspring of Midnight Sun, the 2YO colt Norwegian (by Testa Rossa), won at Mornington on May 12 and Morphettville on June 27.

And leading trainer Lee Freedman has big spring plans for the classy Group 2 winning sprinter Wilander, who is by Exceed And Excel from Scandinavia.

T H E T H O R O U G H B R E D 19

THE NAME GAME

Sons guns of

Following the path of a famous parent is never easy, despite the advantages a headline-grabbing surname can bring. Famous fathers and sons retrace the early steps, and the emotions that accompanied them. WORDS MATT STEWART memorial at Caulfield racecourse, an anonymous bronze jockey atop a plaque inscribed with 305 names of the fallen, is sad proof of the perils of a career in silks and saddle. No wonder parents of young jockeys at times must feel like wartime mums and dads, sending their wideeyed children off to battle.

It’s a fine line, according to Australia’s best modern-day jockey Darren Beadman and Melbourne Cup winning rider Greg Hall, between the natural urge to shield your children and the practicality of allowing them to find their own way.

As a 13-year-old, Mitch Beadman was more interested in music than riding racehorses. Soon after, when he decided he would follow his famous dad’s footsteps,

PHOTO LACHLAN CUNNINGHAM

A

20 THE THOROUGHBRED

Darren gave his full support – he said he had no real option. “I didn’t want to step on his dream, whatever it was, because somewhere down the track he’d be asking himself ‘if only’,” Beadman Snr said.

Hall, who had many bad falls in a stellar career that ended in 2001, said he still worried about son Nicholas every time he rode out to battle, which is almost every day. “I shit myself; still do. I know how dangerous it is. Every day I’m praying that I don’t get that phone call,’’ Hall Snr said.

Tasmania’s leading jockey Stephen Maskiell knew very early on that son Jason would become a jockey – the family couch was Jason’s fi rst ‘horse’. “From an early age he was whipping the couch,” Maskiell Snr said, adding he did not encourage his son to become a jockey but, like Beadman and Hall, supported him when he had made up his mind.

HALLS OF FAME: Greg Hall and his son Nicholas at CaulďŹ eld.

There are hazards and advantages in being the son of anyone famous, let alone a famous jockey. The spotlight can be blinding, but there are ways around it. For example, about the same time Mitch Beadman’s career began in Sydney to great fanfare – and later at some cost – young Nick Hall was anonymously learning the craft at far-flung Victorian bush meetings.

This is how three sets of fathers and sons have coped ...

The Beadmans “Early on he was hot and cold, keen and not keen. He was more interested in his music and his mates most of the time,’’ Darren said. “He’d carry my bags, stuff like that, but it wasn’t until he was 13 or 14 that he seemed to get a bit more interested.’’

Mitch said he never felt any pressure to emulate his legendary

father. “Dad was happy for me to feel my own way. Whatever I did he helped me along the way like any father would. He let me grow up myself, make my own mistakes,’’ he said.

By 15, Mitch had caught the racing bug. He started at the top at Crown Lodge, with his father’s greatest supporter, trainer John Hawkes, who was preparing the huge string of horses owned by Bob Ingham.

“I didn’t want to be an interfering parent, but you tend to be between a rock and a hard place. In the end I let ‘Hawkesy’ do most of the work with Mitch, but I was always there for him at the start,” Darren said. Mitch said: “Mr Hawkes treated me like a son, he really looked after me.

I was riding great horses, it was great to be there.”

Like Stephen Maskiell with his son Jason, Darren initially found it distracting to ride in races in which Mitch also rode. “Initially, I’d be riding my horse and his,” Beadman Snr (43) said from Hong Kong,

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where he moved to ride in 2007.

“It was an eerie feeling. I hated it when he was in front of me. I’d be thinking ‘don’t go there’. I always preferred when he was behind me – out of sight, out of mind.”

Mitch began race riding in the 2005-06 season, and his first ride at Randwick, on June 21 2007, resulted in a dramatic fall with both parents looking on. “Kim and I were both there,” Darren said. “Thank God he walked away. But you can’t wrap them in cotton wool.”

Mitch had a head start, a famous surname and a first master who happened to be the top trainer in the land and a fan of his father, but the young man’s career has not been smooth sailing.

‘ I could think

of nothing worse than watching horses run around in circles. NICK HALL

www.thethoroughbred.com.au

’

When Darren accepted the Hong Kong contract in September 2007, Mitch felt abandoned. “It was very hard for me. It was like the carpet had been pulled from under my feet,” he said.

In quick succession Hawkes announced he was quitting as head trainer for the Inghamowned, Warwick Farm-based Crown Lodge, and Bob Ingham then sold the business to Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum’s Darley Australia.

Mitch’s papers were transferred to John O’Shea at Randwick, where he lasted for less than three months, and left after a falling out with his master. He moved to Chris Waller at Rosehill. “I’d be getting 10-15 rides a week from my own stable (Crown Lodge) and then they were gone. To lose that was a big thing. It took a long time to get over that and I made a few mistakes, which I wouldn’t have made if Dad was there – I mixed with the wrong people,’’ Mitch said.

PHOTO MARTIN KING

VIDEO WATCH: Darren Beadman and son Mitch watch a race replay together after riding against each other.

Darren said it was difficult to accept the Hong Kong offer while Mitch’s career was at such a delicate stage, but he also knew Mitch had to find his own way. “The last 12 months he’s struggled a bit and discovered the other side of racing,” Beadman Snr said. “It’s impossible to be a jockey and a teenager and Mitch has found out the hard way. If you have a profile, like Mitch, you can’t fly under the radar. Mitch can’t scratch himself, it’s like he’s under a neon sign.

“But sometimes you’ve got to make mistakes early on. He hasn’t been as focused as he should be, but down the track it might help his longevity.”

Beadman said his son’s early hiccups were inevitable. “Mitch started at the top. I said to him there was only one way to go, and that’s down, unless you make a go of it. So for him, walking into Crown Lodge was both an advantage and disadvantage. As a parent you want what’s best for your kid, but you can end up making it harder “There were people for and against him, but that’s the nature of the business. You get the tall poppy syndrome. They like to help but they like to bring you back a peg once you’re there.”

Mitch said he was trying to make a go of it with Waller after the disruption of the past year. He has kept his nose clean, except for an incident at the Newcastle races on May 3 when he was fined on a charge of obscene language, directed at a female rider.

“Racing has so many ups and downs. I’m on the right track now,” he said. “It’s been hard but I’m going to be a better person for it and a better rider.’’

Was there a head start in being the son of a legend? “At the end of the day everyone can say I’ve had it easy, but everyone has to work hard in this business, no matter who they are.”

Now 19, Beadman has some 80 winners and has emerged from

PHOTO SLICKPIX

THE NAME GAME

BREAKTHROUGH: Jason Maskiell wins for the first time in Melbourne, on Awimoweh at Moonee Valley on June 20.

his inevitable rough patch. And, half a world away, he and his father are there for each other. “I speak to him a lot, probably twice a day,” Mitch said. “He’s great. We talk about anything.”

The Halls About the time young Nick Hall stopped hating horse racing and started giving into his bloodlines, he asked his famous father if there was a quid in horse racing.

Greg, whose family had been riding racehorses for a century, offered a blunt reply. “I said you just ride every day and don’t worry about that. You do the right thing, don’t go around tipping to people and you’ll end up with a Ferrari and a yacht.” Nick, who is in his fourth season, has ridden more than 270 winners and is well on the way to doing just that.

Hall Snr (51), winner of 44 Group 1 races, is in awe of his 21-year-old son. “He’s an unbelievable talent. It’s frightening.

There’s not much I can tell him, to be honest. In three years it’s amazing what he’s done.”

Hall said he had little influence on his son’s style – Greg was a vigorous whip rider, Nick is more

subtle, more European. Similarly, Jason Maskiell said his riding style has been more moulded by a jockey cousin, James Nevin, than his father.

Nick Hall lived in Dubai and Brisbane with his mother, Kim, after she and Greg Hall split. He hated the races – “I could think of nothing worse than watching horses run around in circles,” he said – but, like Mitch Beadman, he caught the bug.

“It wasn’t handed to me on a plate, but after a while it (becoming a jockey) became obvious,” Hall Jnr said. “I was sick of school and knew I didn’t want to sit in an office all day ... Here’s an interesting fact: for 100 years there’s always been a Hall riding; I suppose I couldn’t avoid it.”

(Greg Hall’s grandfather Robert Hall rode in India. Greg’s father Ron, who died last month, was a champion jumps jockey. Greg’s brother Ron Jnr also was a top jumps jockey – he now heads the Victorian apprentices’ school – and Ron’s son Vince was a successful jockey but was beaten by weight. ) Greg Hall’s mate Gerald Egan, a gun horseman from Victoria’s high country, was an obvious choice as young Nick’s master.

“The first horse, he (Nick) put the saddle on backwards. It got better after that,” Greg laughed.

“I stood in the background. After

18 months he learned to break in horses, went mustering, lungeing, jumped ponies, learned how to drive a tractor … he just loved it.

“I stayed up there (Mansfield) for three months but I was very conscious of not sticking my nose in. Someone asked me if I’d manage Nick. I said no way, with fathers and sons it ends in tears “He’s my baby boy, but kids that age don’t listen to their dads.

That’s why I put him in Gerald’s care.” Nick agreed it was the right move. “Me and Dad had a pretty rocky relationship,” he said.

“When he told me something I didn’t listen.”

Nick Hall’s career was well managed. Unlike Mitch Beadman’s, it was all about anonymity, and Greg said: “We purposely kept him out of the media limelight. I watched what happened with Mitch.

I’ve known them for a long time – not knocking Darren, but I didn’t want Nick to get too much scrutiny, so he (Nick) rode 100 winners in the bush before anyone had heard of him.’’

The Halls have become closer recently, with Greg’s influence more accepted. “As my career has gone on there are definitely things that have bought us together, experiences we have in common,” Hall Jnr said. “It’s good, it’s really

LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON Other well-known riding families over the years include: Cook: Bill, and Peter Didham: Midge, and John Hutchinson: Ron, and Peter King: Alby, and Steven Miller: John, and Mark and Shayne Moore: George, and Gary Noske: Jeff, and Jarrad Palmer: Gary, and Matthew and Michael Shinn: Gerald, and Blake Williams: Allan, and Craig

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The Maskiells There was a speed hump to Jason Maskiell’s dream of becoming a top jockey – his parents’ divorce.

“That made it a bit more difficult for the boy,’’ said Stephen (46), who moved from Longford (near Launceston in the north of the state) to Hobart (in the south) when he split with Jason’s mother, Linda, more than a year ago.

Jason, 18, graduated from the family couch to the family pony

PHOTO SLICKPIX

good now, mainly because he doesn’t get too involved. He’s a good supporter but not a great teacher. Things are a lot different now than when he was riding.

We’re completely different riders.”

Greg said the best he could do was advise his son to be careful.

“I know how dangerous it is. I’ve broken everything – my back, a collarbone, ribs – I just remind him to be careful, check his gear.”

And Nick has no illusions about being the next Greg Hall.

“There’s no extra pressure. I enjoy nothing more than riding a good race. I can’t think about matching my dad. It’d be impossible, but I guess every time I ride a blacktype winner I get a bit closer.’’

PHOTO PETER STAPLES, TASRACING

THE NAME GAME

THE FATHER: Stephen Maskiell unsaddles a Tasmanian winner.

THE SON: Jason Maskiell is interviewed after his first Melbourne win.

every day after school. Stephen was always there. Then he wasn’t.

“Dad always helped me, then he moved. For nine months we really didn’t speak. It’s only been the last little bit that things have changed,’’ Jason said. While the father-son relationship has at times been strained, Stephen (who has ridden about 2000 winners in Tasmania, mainland Australia and South-East Asia), said he always had Jason’s best interests at heart.

“I taught at apprentice schools in Macau and Singapore so I always thought there were things I could teach him,” he said. “I’m probably harder on Jason because he is my son – especially when

he was young, I was aware of not letting him think things should come easily. Whether he’s accepted it or not has been up to him. But I’ve always been protective. He’s my son, but they also have to learn for themselves.”

Like Darren Beadman, Maskiell found riding against his son difficult. “Not as much now because he is more competent, but the first year I was riding mine and watching his. It was a real distraction,’’ the father said.

Maskiell said times had changed. “There’s more help, more formal training for him than in my era,” he said, adding that his surname had not hindered Jason.

“It’s easier to start with, but I’m sure he works hard to make his own identity, pull away from me a bit. He’s a very competitive person.”

Jason said: “I think it’s 50-50. There’s probably a bit more pressure to live up to his surname, but at the same time everyone knew who I was, so I had a head start.”

The best lesson Stephen can teach his son? “To stay out of danger; identify it,’’ he said.

Jason said he was never far from his father in races – deliberately.

“I tend to follow Dad because he’s always on the best horses, (but) if I get on a horse he’s used to riding he gets filthy. We’re always trying to beat each other.’’

That rivalry is on hold with Jason Maskiell leaving the Northern Tasmanian stables of his master (and grandfather) Ken Hanson to join leading Victorian trainer Mick Price at Caulfield in July. Maskiell rode a ‘preview’ winner (Awimoweh, for Cranbourne trainer Robbie Laing) at Moonee Valley on June 20, when he said: “You couldn’t go to anyone any better than Mick Price, and I’m just stoked to get the opportunity to come over.”

THE WEIGHTING GAME It is not always a smooth ride for the sons who follow their fathers, reports Matt Stewart Weight has always been the bane of jockeys, but the sons are greater victims of the scales than the fathers, simply because we are all getting taller. Diet and exercise programs are better now but they have to be, and they can’t work for everyone – as Luke Dittman found out before he turned 18.

“He’s bigger than me,” Brisbane Courier-Mail chief racing writer Bart Sinclair said of Dittman, the talented but weight-thwarted son of former champion jockey Mick Dittman. “It’s a real shame.

He’s quite a talent.”

Mick Dittman (57), Racing Hall of Fame member and winner of 88 Group 1 races, was proud and positive but also wary when young Luke scored his first city winner, at Eagle Farm in December last year. “I’m no different from any parent whose son or daughter is riding in races. You really do worry about them,” Dittman told the Courier-Mail. “When he first told me he wanted to have a go I really didn’t think it would last long, but he’s worked his backside off. He didn’t get that from me.”

On calling it quits, aged 17, earlier this year, Luke had 73

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winners from 500 rides. He rode 22 winners in his final 100 races.

Champion Victorian apprentice Sebastian Murphy’s shock decision to put his career on hold late last winter was complicated. It was prompted by exhaustion rather than weight – although Murphy did put on at least 10kg within weeks of pulling the plug. He had 305 wins from 2495 rides over three and a bit seasons, and had his first Group 1 win on June 7, 2008 (Mr Baritone in the Stradbroke Handicap (1400m) at Eagle Farm in Brisbane).

His comeback has been thwarted by constant back

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soreness – he has a bulging disc that has prevented him from losing weight, but he has vowed to return.

Murphy (19) is the son of veteran Garry (51), who still rides. Murphy Snr has had 30-40 winners in each of the past five seasons.

In New Zealand, Troy Harris, the son of veteran rider Noel (53, who has more than 2000 winners), was caught out by another trap of modern youth – drugs: in February the 20-year-old was outed for three months after a random urine sample tested positive to cannabis.

THE LUCKY OWNER

the

PERKS of success Syndication is the game Harry Perks plays, in business and on the track.

And, in both places, he has found profit and fun ride well together.

WORDS STEVE MORAN PHOTOS BRUNO CANNATELLI

hen Harry Perks started a chartered accounting practice in Adelaide in 1981 with his brother Greg it was immediately suggested it be called ‘Lurks and Perks’. That was amusing enough at the time, but it also was prescient given the success that was to follow in two spheres with a key strategy – a lurk if you like – germinating in the world of horse racing.

Harry Perks was among the first to embrace, and then to refine, the notion of syndication in racing. He has taken it beyond most in that arena, and well and truly beyond in the wider world.

The brothers’ original accounting practice, which has made the BRW list of Australia’s top 100 accounting firms for many years, spawned

W 26 THE THOROUGHBRED

Perks Property Investments, which now owns 19 shopping centres and three office buildings valued at $600 million.

That is spectacular growth from the development of their first shopping centre at Whyalla in 1990, and it is based on the principles and pluses of syndication that Perks first applied, a decade earlier, to racehorses and breeding stock.

“It’s pretty simple really,” he said. “You’re just putting groups of people together, which means they have more cash, more scope, more clout. It minimises risk, but gives you huge potential to invest and grow.

“Better to have 10 per cent of a major $40 million venture than total risk with a one-out, smaller four-or-five-million-dollar venture. And when you have like-minded investors together, by defi nition, you have fewer people in the market trying to buy what you’re trying to buy.”

DERBY DUO: Clare Lindop wins the SA Derby on Rebel Raider, part-owned by Harry Perks, in May.

QUITE A HANDFUL Harry Perks’s best horses GOLD GURU Ch g 1994, Geiger Counter (USA)-Proud Halo, by Don’t Say Halo (USA) Record: 43-8-5-3 Prizemoney: $2,454,860 Big wins: G1 Australian Guineas (1600m, F’ton), G1 Ranvet Stakes (2000m, R’hill), G1 AJC Australian Derby (2400m, R’wick); G2 Breeders’ Stakes (1200m, Morph.), G2 AAMI Vase (2040m, MV), G2 AAMI Classic (1800m, Caulfield) DEVIL MOON B m 5, King Cugat (USA)Classy Babe (NZ), by Masterclass (USA) Record: 24-8-3-4 Prizemoney: $1,048,500 Big wins: G1 Turnbull Stakes (2000m, Flemington); G2 Stocks Stakes (1600m, MV) REBEL RAIDER Br c 3, Reset-Picholine, by Dehere (USA) Record: 15-5-2-1 Prizemoney: $1,315,975 Big wins: G1 Victoria Derby (2500m, Flemington), G1 SAJC Derby (2400m, Morph.)

SERIOUS SPEED Ch m 4, Royal Academy (USA)-Twitter, by Kendor (FR) Record: 20-5-2-3 Prizemoney: $967,790 Big wins: G1 Thousand Guineas (1600m, Caulfield); G2 Hobartville Stakes (1400m, Rosehill) UNDOUBTEDLY B h 2002, Redoute’s Choice-Kiss A Halo, by Don’t Say Halo (USA) Record: 9-2-0-2 Prizemoney: $765,200 Big win: G1 Blue Diamond Stakes (1200m, Caulfield)

Perks Property Investments became one of Australia’s first major property and commercial development syndicate investors.

And the genesis of this? The punt, of course.

“At uni one of my mates was Steve Kelton and his father John was the track manager at Morphettville for 30 years. Steve and I would head off to the races as often as we could and did OK on the punt,” Perks said.

Remarkably, both Perks and Steve Kelton recently stood for election to the South Australian Jockey Club committee in the ballot that was triggered by allegations of vote rigging. Only Perks was successful. “Racing’s been good to me and that was my main motivation, but there’s a few things that need to be set right over here (in South Australia),” he said.

But, back to the beginning of the journey, and with the punt firing an interest in racing Perks was soon involved on a bigger scale.

In 1980, with friends Rod Fairclough and Trevor Robertson, Perks acquired Toorak Park Stud, which stood Always Welcome (B or br h, 1973, Seventh Hussar (FR)-Welcome Back, by Tour Du Monde (FR).

“We then bought Don’t Say Halo (Br h 1982, Halo (USA)-Never Babble (USA), by Advocator (USA)) for $550,000 and syndicated him, and he became champion first-season sire,” Perks said. “We learnt the power of syndication through him.

“SA breeding and racing was much stronger then and the horse did well, and the three of us have remained together in racing. But, eventually, we decided that standing a stallion was perhaps not the way to go – you tend to send all your mares to your own stallion and that can be dangerous.

“Don’t Say Halo was relocated to Widden (in the Hunter Valley, NSW), we sold the stud in the early ’90s and moved all our mares to Mill Park, which proved a bonanza. The number of Group

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PHOTO BY MICHAEL WILLSON

THE LUCKY OWNER

FLEMINGTON THRILL: Harry Perks (right) accepts the Victoria Derby trophy after Rebel Raider’s win in November.

1 winners, pro rata, to come out of that place has been phenomenal.”

Gold Guru, Rebel Raider, Serious Speed, Devil Moon and Undoubtedly are among the Group 1 horses to have been raised at Mill Park, near Meningie on the Limestone Coast in the state’s south-east.

All hae been raced by Perks’s syndicates. The first three named are or were trained by Leon Macdonald and the latter two by Mark Kavanagh. They have been Perks’s two key trainers, with the ball rolling first with Macdonald.

Perks said he could not recall the detail of his first interaction with Macdonald, but the trainer thought it might have been at the yearling sales in Adelaide. “I can recall the boys at the time – I think it was Perksy and Robbo (Trevor Robertson) – sitting on a bucket, having a beer and talking about what to do with these yearlings they hadn’t been able to sell,” Macdonald said. “I fi nished up taking a few and a couple won races, but nothing grand.

“I think the first winner we had might have been a maiden at Port Lincoln, but it was the start of a long association. From memory, I think the first good one they had was Will Fly (B m 1993, Will

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Dancer (FR)-Flying Aureole,

by Don’t Say Halo (USA)).

“She was a tiny little filly. Awful little thing. Fourteen hands high and six inches wide. I told the boys I’d break her in for nothing and see if she had anything. Well, she had plenty. I rang them, said ‘I’ve got a name for her because she will fly’. She bolted in her maiden at Naracoorte and then won a stakes race at her next start.”

Macdonald said the turning point for Perks and his partners was abandoning Toorak Park. “It wasn’t the greatest place you’ve ever seen and it just didn’t work. They moved the mares to Mill Park and the rest is history. Mill Park is fantastic.

Great fenced-off paddocks, lots of room and run by single-minded, great horse people,” he said.

Kavanagh came along much later. Around the time, Perks said, that Kavanagh outbid Macdonald for Undoubtedly and the boys bought 30 per cent of the horse with the ‘new’ trainer.

“I don’t think it was quite that way,” said Macdonald. “I was chasing Undoubtedly for an Adelaide Crows group headed by Mark Ricciuto and I valued him at around $100,000 and he went for much more than that ($190,000).”

You sense that Macdonald felt a bit of friction was developing, but five years on he and Perks remain great friends and racing partners who, in 2009, have a legitimate Melbourne Cup hope in dual

Derby winner Rebel Raider. “One thing I’ll say about Harry is that he wants to have a red hot go and he’s never beaten,” Macdonald said.

The AJC Australian Derby winner Gold Guru is the one Macdonald-trained, Perks-raced horse who may never be replaced as the owner’s favorite. “I’m quite attached to him,” he said. “He was our first really serious horse, won three Group 1s and beat horses like Might And Power and Zonda.”

So, syndication aside, what has been secret to the racing success for the 60-year-old father of six who was born and raised in South Australia? “Well I’d like to think good management and planning, but some do call me ‘Lucky Harry’.

Peter Liston (former owner of Lakewood Stud in SA who owns Three Bridges Stud near Malden in Victoria) just touches me for luck.

“You have to have some luck of course, but I think you stick to the basics. Breed the best to the best and, importantly, rear them the best. I like mares that can run. I like sprint mares to sprintmiler stallions. Keep the speed ...

“And when it comes down to it, we don’t buy top-end horses.

We bought Classy Babe, the dam of Devil Moon, for $60,000.

Proud Halo was $6000 and her second foal was Gold Guru. We get bloodstock advice from good people like Adrian Hancock, work hard to get everything right and you’ve got to raise ’em right, which is why Mill Park has been so important. It’s great sand over limestone country there, great paddocks, one horse per eight to 10 acres, individual feeding regimes for the horses and dedicated people running the show.

“And, fortunately, the principles we have applied from horse racing to business have worked, and vice versa in some cases. I’ll keep doing both until the day I die – racing and working. I love the racing and I love the wheeling and dealing of business … and I love the fact that, who knows, we might be there on Melbourne Cup day this year,” Perks said.

A PERK OF OWNERSHIP: Harry Perks gets to lead Rebel Raider (Clare Lindop) back to scale after the South Australian Derby in May.

GREAT GRIST FROM THE MILL Mill Park is in the upper south-east of South Australia, on the Limestone Coast, about 20 km south of Meningie. It is run by Peter and Serena Watson, their son Christopher and his wife Sian.

These Group 1 winners have emerged from the property – Divine Madonna, Devil Moon, Mummify, Gold Guru, Princess Coup, Undoubtedly, Serious Speed, Rebel Raider, Proprietor and St Clemens Belle.

“Originally we were sheep farmers, but now we’re about 99 per cent horses,” said Peter Watson. “Thank God for horses. It is remarkable, I think, the number of good horses who have emerged from this place.

“We work fastidiously in raising the horses. The weanlings are divided by age and size. We’re very focused about how we feed them. You don’t see Olympic runners emerge from fat teenagers.

We understock dramatically.

We never run out of the best feed. We have a selection of grasses and we do feed differently … not much grain for the yearlings.

“The sandy country here helps horses and, close to the sea, we have a mild, temperate climate. We have one horse to eight to 10 acres and the paddocks are fenced up to suit horses. My son Christopher does a great job. He worked at Arrowfield and travelled to America and England, where he learnt a lot.

“They say in cattle and sheep that 30 per cent of the breeding is in the feeding, and with horses I suspect that might be 50 per cent.

‘We’ve had a lot of luck with Harry (Perks). That all started when Barry Appleton, who was with Harry at Toorak Park and who used to buy feed from us, rang and said they were sending a couple of truckloads of mares to our place. I said, ‘Don’t be silly,’ and hung up. But, lo and behold, they came, probably about 30 mares, and it all started from there.

I hope it keeps going, for Harry and us ...”

Steve Moran

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THE 2002 MELBOURNE CUP

Voices

of the cup

Go behind the scenes with the author of The Cup, the story of the 2002 Melbourne Cup, won by Media Puzzle and Damien Oliver.

WORDS & PHOTOGRAPH BY ERIC O'KEEFE

THE BOOK Eric O’Keefe’s story of the 2002 Melbourne Cup triumph, published by The Slattery Media Group, will be on sale on August 1. RRP $34.95 – order online at slatterymedia.com/books

30 THE THOROUGHBRED

H

ave you ever walked into a paddock with a lead rope in your hand only to fi nd out that you were about to be given a lesson in catching the wind? With twists and feints and an occasional burst of speed, a playful horse can turn a 10-second drill into a bullfight, and the only thing thin that gets pride. gored is your prid an So it is when interviewing i you want Irishman. The more m a straight answer, answ the more And evasive he becomes. bec though you typically come it is away empty-handed, empt a delightful almost always alw experience. That’s one experien lesson I learned while researching The Cup, resea the story of Damien Oliver’s thrilling Ol victory in the 2002 vi Melbourne Cup M

on Media Puzzle (Ch g 1997, Theatrical-Market Slide, by Gulch).

It was on my two visits to the Emerald Isle that I met the masters of verbal jousting. Although I’m sure it’s practised to perfection at countless pubs across the land, you would be hard pressed to find more skilled practitioners than Kevin Prendergast, John Oxx and Dermot Weld.

Each has paid his respects at Flemington: Prendergast with Oscar Schindler, Oxx with Enzeli, and Weld with Vintage Crop (Ch g 1987, Rousillon-Overplay,

by Bustino), Vinnie Roe (B h 1998, Definite Article-Kayu, by Tap On Wood), Media Puzzle and, last year, Profound Beauty.

Yet their long-distance forays to Oz are just one similarity.

Like the best Irish feuds, theirs goes back generations. Fifty years ago, Prendergast, Oxx, and Weld were licensed trainers at the Curragh. At that time, it was “Darkie” Prendergast, John

Oxx snr, and Charlie Weld. Now their sons do battle. On many a morning, the three can be found watching their runners race up the gallops at the Curragh.

That was the case when I was in Ireland for the 2007 St. Leger. I had driven out from Dublin with director Simon Wincer, with whom I co-wrote the script for The Cup, and Clodagh Tierney, our Irish location scout. Not a horse was in sight. But Oxx and Prendergast were.

I’d love to think the two were just gabbing away, but the truth is there’s not a trainer at Caulfield who would recognise a morning workout at the Curragh. To begin

CURRAGH CRAIC: Jimmy Feane (left) and Stan Cosgrove (centre) of Moyglare Stud join Cup-winning trainer Dermot Weld atop the gallops at Ireland’s most famous racecourse.

with, the Irish start well after sun-up, not in the dark. The gallopers take long leisurely walks from their yards to the racecourse, a task that can last at least half an hour. After arriving at the Curragh, the track riders assemble in twos and threes before running up the gallops past their trainers.

Not once have I seen a stopwatch used. Afterwards, the trainers make their way over to where the herd has gathered. One by one, they discuss each horse with its

rider. Then the horses make their way back to the yards and the trainers to the gallops where they pull out their mobiles and wait another hour or so for the next round of runners.

That’s exactly how we happened on the two. After Simon informed them that he was directing a film about Media Puzzle’s improbable victory in the Melbourne Cup, Kevin Prendergast told us that, “Media Puzzle went to Australia as a lead horse for Vinnie Roe”.

So true. In Ireland, in 2002, Media Puzzle was a non-winner in eight previous outings. Vinnie Roe? Europe’s finest stayer had

won seven of his previous eight races, including three Group 1 contests. Yet in Australia it was Media Puzzle who blossomed.

Our chance meeting gave me the perfect opportunity to find out exactly how much Godolphin had paid for Pugin (B h 1998, Darshaan-Gothic Dream, by Nashwan), the best-weighted horse in the 2002 Cup. Oxx trained the son of Darshaan for Lady Clague, and for much of Pugin’s career he had run head-tohead against Vinnie Roe. They had carried equal weight in the 2002 Irish St. Leger. Vinnie Roe won by a length. For the Melbourne Cup, Vinnie Roe had 59kg and

Pugin just 53.5kg. The mismatch was too good to pass up, and Godolphin seized the opportunity.

Mind you, Oxx could recall when he was approached by Godolphin, and where, and the day the deal was closed. And the price?

“Not to worry, Eric. By now it’s all been spent.”

I can still hear Wincer laughing at Oxx’s deft parry of my blunt question. But this was not the first time I had witnessed the rhetorical skills of Ireland’s finest.

Years before I had gone out to the gallops with Dermot Weld and one of his top clients, Stan Cosgrove, who runs Moyglare Stud for Walter Haefner. Stan had come over from Maynooth to watch his horses run, and he brought along Jimmy Feane. Judging from their banter, it was obvious that the three went way back. That became especially evident after a group of horses rocketed past. Up until that point, Weld had been naming each of his gallopers. As this trio thundered by us, he failed to single out the straggler.

“Now who would that last one be, Dermot?” Cosgrove asked. The question hung in the air as the horses galloped out of sight. All three of us waited for his response.

“The important thing, Stan, is that it’s not one of yours,” Dermot replied.

To this day I can still hear Jimmy mimicking Dermot as we stood out there. “The important thing, Stan, is that it’s not one of yours,” he would say again and again. Finally, he added an appreciation: “Grand, Dermot.

Just grand.”

I learned a simple lesson: if a long-standing member of the Irish Turf Club can’t get a straight answer out of Weld, why should the rest of us worry?

American journalist Eric O’Keefe ranks the victory of Media Puzzle and Damien Oliver in the 2002 Melbourne Cup as the most thrilling, and moving, episode in thoroughbred racing history. He chronicles the duo’s trials, and ultimate triumph, in The Cup.

THE THOROUGHBRED 31

EASY RIDER

KING HOLDS COURT In almost 20 years at the top level Steven King has ridden the best against the best, and built up a record that few can match. His focus on his craft is as strong as ever, but it is not all-consuming as family and farm provide vital outlets.

He shares his journey with BEN COLLINS. PHOTOS LACHLAN CUNNINGHAM

32 THE THOROUGHBRED

KING’S TURF: Steven King keeps an eye on the weather at his Macedon Ranges property.

THE THOROUGHBRED 33

EASY RIDER

I’ve got jockeys on both sides of my family. My father Alby was a jockey, and so was my mother’s father, Jim Tully. As a kid, I spent a lot of time on the road with Dad going to races on weekends, but in those days I was more interested in collecting betting tickets in the betting ring – I’d go home with a handful of them. I also went into the jockeys’ room at times, but I didn’t have much to do with horses, apart from occasionally going to trackwork with Dad. We lived in Parkdale (a bayside suburb south-east of Melbourne), so I’d also go with Dad to a big sauna used by a lot of jockeys in the next suburb, Mordialloc, where they’d sit and tell stories and get a rubdown. From a young age, I understood what the life of a jockey was about, although Dad never pushed it with me. If he rode a winner, we’d celebrate with a bit of a party and we’d get a lunch order at school on a Monday, but it was a pretty quiet time if he didn’t win.

FLYING FILLY: Steven King wins the Group 2 Sires’ Produce Stakes at Flemington on Rostova.

been on a horse. John got me some riding lessons with a good show rider named Billy Walke. I was pretty motivated so I made quick progress.

If you could conquer the stable pony, you could conquer racehorses. I spent four or five months riding the stable pony around Epsom and he was difficult to learn on but great to learn on at the same time because he was more volatile than a racehorse.

That gave me a great grounding.

I always felt ready to do more than John Meagher allowed me to do. But in saying that, I respected and accepted what

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he said. I mean, I rode more than 100 trials before I had my first race ride (as an 18-yearold), when these days young jockeys might have only seven or eight trials. It was all part of John’s plan to condition me.

He wouldn’t even let me pull the whip in my first 50 rides – he wanted me to be balanced before I started hitting horses.

Even then I was only allowed to give them backhanders, before progressing to forehand. I also rode 58 winners in the country before John let me ride in town.

He always told me: “You’re a longterm jockey. There’s no rush; there’s plenty of time to go to

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the city and become a city-class jockey.” He was spot on. Within 12 months, I out-rode my claim in town.

My fi rst win was a lucky one (on My Request at Geelong in 1987). I probably shouldn’t have won it. I wasn’t allowed to pull the whip, so I was punching hands and heels when all the horse probably needed was a gentle heel and a toe and he would have won by two lengths. Then a horse came up on the outside of me but the jockey dropped his whip, and even then I only beat him in a photo-fi nish.

PHOTO DAVID CALLOW

I didn’t ride a horse until I was 16. Everyone kept telling me I was going to be a jockey, but I didn’t really think about it because I didn’t know much about actual riding. When I was 15, people kept asking me what I was going to do with my life and I felt I had to make a decision soon because everyone was putting pressure on. I gave riding a go with (trainer) Ian Saunders, but I only lasted two or three days. I didn’t like the labour side of it. I swept out a cobblestone stable and was told to go back and do it again. I thought: ‘This isn’t my caper.’

I went back to school and, at the end of Year 9, I went to see John Meagher (who trained 1985 Melbourne Cup winner What A Nuisance) and told him I wanted to be a jockey. John said: “Well go back to school and come back and see me in 12 months.” That was the turning point because I went back to school with a career path in mind, even though I still hadn’t

The difference between good jockeys and champion jockeys is the ability to handle pressure, the pressure of being under the pump and getting results. John trained me to cope with any mental pressure. He was such a strong boss that when I got out there in the Group 1 world, I felt I was not only ready to compete, but ready to win and really kick on.

If you’re not your own harshest critic, you won’t get to the top.

That’s one of the most important things John taught me about riding and life. He wanted you to critically analyse yourself, rather than leave it up to others to do it

for you. You know when you’re doing wrong, you don’t need someone else to tell you, so act on it. If you’re not critical of yourself, you can’t improve.

I’d come home after riding two or three winners in town and I’d be thinking ‘I’m a genius’, but then I’d have dinner with John and his family and he’d keep asking me questions until I couldn’t answer one and I’d walk out almost in tears. But I soon realised that was his way of keeping my feet on the ground.

There’s no point riding two winners and thinking you’re a superstar because you probably should have ridden three winners, or you should have won by more.

I’ve been very strict with myself throughout my career. You need to be able to say to yourself: ‘Mate, you’ve just cost that horse the win,’ and then try to make sure it doesn’t happen next time.

was better, but even though I was young and I’d never ridden a Derby winner before, I just knew Star Of The Realm could win it.

He was a good Flemington horse – a gangly, big bloke. John said: “Which one do you want?” I made the right choice. I was just numb over that six or seven-week period.

I never imagined my career would take off as quickly as it did in ’91 with Let’s Elope and Star Of The Realm. I knew Leon Corstens (Bart Cummings’s then foreman) pretty well from riding work at Flemington and he put me on Let’s Elope. She was at big odds the first time I rode her in the Turnbull Stakes. Leon’s instructions were to just sit back and give her plenty of room in the straight, which I did, and she won. In the Caulfield Cup, she had 48.5kg – not many jockeys can ride that weight, and that’s half the reason I kept the ride on her. We won the Caulfield (Cup). I knew I had to win on her because everyone would be chasing the ride. I was only 21 and I was very determined, but I knew there would be bigger names trying to get on her, especially after she won the Caulfield Cup. I had to win on her, and we did – we won the Mackinnon (Stakes) and then the Melbourne Cup. I had a bit of luck with Star Of The Realm. John Meagher had two horses in the (Victoria) Derby – Ready To Explode and Star Of The Realm. Ready To Explode’s form

‘ No wonder I

I think I handled the success well – took it in my stride, didn’t let it go to my head. That probably comes from being the son of a jockey. Even though that level of success was a shock, I expected to do well, so in a way I felt ready for it. I think I’ve always been level-headed, and if I’ve ever got too big for my boots, I’ve had John and my racing family to keep me grounded. I’m also very aware that racing is a tough industry – one minute you can be up, the next minute you can be down – so it’s best to be even-minded.

couldn’t catch Ollie – he had too many bloody good horses.

’

Rivalries are fantastic. Quite often races were billed as ‘Ollie’ (Damien Oliver) and ‘Freedy’ (Lee Freedman) against John Meagher and myself. We respected each other, but we were desperate to win. Even today, Ollie and I have a great rivalry. I love it. You need that in life.

I went to Hong Kong (in the mid and then late 1990s) chasing a nest-egg. I’d had a lot of success but there was very little to show for it in the bank.

I thought: ‘This could be as good as it gets in Australia; I’ve got to go and find a dollar somewhere’, and Hong Kong was fantastic. I’ve spent about four years there, on and off. I rode for Ricky Yiu, who became the first local trainer to win an international race, so that was a bit of a feather in the cap.

Having kids changes your whole outlook on life. All of a sudden, your life isn’t just yours.

Even though you’re still the major breadwinner, you can’t expect your young family to live on the 12th floor of an apartment building in Hong Kong seven days a week. They’re growing kids and they need to be running around outside. I loved that as a kid, so how could I deprive them of it? That pulled at the old heartstrings a bit. Also, my oldest boy, Jordan, did Grade Prep and Grade One over there in a Japanese school. But Hong Kong is so transient that the kids come and go all the time, which makes it hard for kids to build friendships because they’re always leaving for Canada or South Africa or wherever they’re from. I thought: ‘This isn’t fair.’

It comes back to the question: ‘Why do you have kids in the first place?’ Leanne and I had them because we want to grow with them and be with them. The racing is great in Hong Kong, but it’s more for single businessmen chasing money.

I own a property in the Macedon Ranges, which added to the reasons to come back to Australia. It’s an agistment property with a few cattle and sheep – something a bit different away from the suburbs. I’ve always liked open spaces. I need room. Living in confined spaces in Hong Kong probably drove that fact home to me.

I was Lee Freedman’s stable jockey for 12 months (in 1996) while Ollie was away. It was a great opportunity. Lee was strict like John. With successful people, you’re only there because they expect you to do the job, and there’s no point making excuses when you stuff up because they know exactly what happened.

Lee had seven or eight individual Group 1 winners, and one day I said: “No wonder I couldn’t catch Ollie – he had too many bloody good horses!”

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MAN’S BEST FRIEND: King spends time with his dog Jessie.

I knew Encosta De Lago was a good horse the first time I rode him. He had charisma, he was strong, well-balanced and had a beautiful nature. We drew a wide barrier in the (1996) Vic Health Cup at Caulfield, so Lee told me: “Go back and look for luck.” He was climbing over the back of them waiting to get out and was such a good horse that I just had to steer him.

Unfortunately, we didn’t see the best of him. (At stud, Encosta De Lago has become one of Australia’s great stallions.)

I thought Count Chivas would win the 1996 Melbourne Cup. I followed Saintly all the way and I thought: ‘He (Saintly) won’t get the two miles – we’ll be right.’

But when he straightened up and kicked, he put about three (lengths) on me. I don’t think I would have done anything different though. Count Chivas

was about 40-1 that day and he ran probably the best race he could have run (to finish second).

I’ve only won one jockeys’ premiership (in 1996-97, the year King also won the Scobie Breasley Medal), but I really focused on trying to win it that year. To do that, you need great support all year round and big stable backing. I’d moved around a bit but that year I had the chance and it was great to put it in the cabinet with everything else. I thought: ‘OK, I’ve achieved that now, what’s the next goal?’

If you win with people who haven’t experienced it before, it’s even better. They probably come out of it like I did in ’91 – completely numb, thinking: ‘How the hell did that happen?’ Racing is a hard game and you have to put a lot of hours into it and there has always been a long build-up behind the scenes.

It’s so rewarding winning Group 1s on horses you’ve ridden all

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through their preparation. It’s a game of inches and it’s crucial to know all their little quirks and chinks in the armour, so you know where you can and can’t go.

If you’re chopping and changing jockeys all the time, each rider has to learn the horse before he can do anything with it. Horses like Serenade Rose and Helenus cleaned up – they won three or four races in the prep – and to be part of that is special.

Preparation is one of the key ingredients. If my preparation has been faultless, I’m pretty relaxed before a race because I pretty much know what I’m going to do before I even go out there. I’ve run that race over in my mind 30 times and I roughly know where I want to be at any given stage of the race. You have total focus, you know your form, you know your horse, how the track’s racing, you know your opposition, and you know how far you can push certain horses and riders around you. They’re all two-percenters that add up. And

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you have to use those pieces of information to your advantage in split-seconds. It’s amazing how much goes through your mind in the 58 seconds of a 1000-metre sprint for example. The flow of the race changes so many times as one horse drops off and a new one comes up next to you. You can’t hesitate – you have to take your opportunities when they come.

But on the other hand, if my preparation has been mixed or we’ve drawn an awkward barrier and I know I have to be in a certain position at a certain time, I’m a bit on edge.

I’ve been blessed to ride two of the best staying mares Australia has ever seen – Makybe Diva and Let’s Elope – and great sprinters like Schillaci and Fairy King Prawn (in Hong Kong). The difference between good horses and champions is acceleration – if they can’t accelerate, they’re not going to reach the top level. I can’t say which is the best, but I’d love to see them race each other. How

EASY RIDER

do you compare Makybe Diva and Let’s Elope? They had similar racing patterns and both had great acceleration. You could sit six lengths off them straightening up and know you’d reel them in.

That’s a pretty awesome feeling.

Staying races are a lot about patience and common sense. You have to understand horses can’t make two or three runs – they’re not trained to do it. That’s just common sense, but in major races with big prizemoney at stake, common sense can get thrown out the window. If jockeys take off a long way from home in a staying race, their horses usually aren’t there at the winning post.

You don’t lose your ability, you lose opportunities. And when you get the opportunities, you’ve got to capitalise. I think I still do that today. The day I don’t capitalise on my opportunities is the day I give it away.

My worst injury was a broken leg (suffered at Seymour in August 2007). It was a Sunday meeting and there was really no reason for me to be there – no horse had taken me there. I just went there to build a few connections. The horse (Hargitay) tried to go under the barriers and my leg snapped – it was broken in six places. It put me out for six months, which was unfortunate because I would have been on El Segundo for the Cox Plate that year. But that’s racing.

I’ve had broken collarbones and so forth, but the leg was the worst I’ve had, simply because of the long layoff. But the break did me a world of good. Obviously I would have preferred to have done it in the off-season rather than during the spring carnival, but like any absence, it only made the heart grow fonder. I got over it and moved on. I’d had a pretty good run up until then, so I couldn’t complain.

I’m still fearless. I never think about the potential for injury – the day I do is the day I give it away. We all understand the

risks involved – they are always there – but you can’t afford to think about it going into a race.

If it happens, it happens, and you deal with it then.

through my selections – and that comes down to knowing the form, knowing the horses and having quality people around you who want your services.

It’s not good for jockeys to ride every day because it erodes motivation and passion. More rides don’t make you a better jockey. Racing has become a seven-day-a-week job, but you can’t let yourself fall into that monotonous daily routine of race riding. A lot of time you go into the jockeys’ room today and you can tell some jockeys just don’t want to be there because they’re there every day.

I thought we had a great result with Littorio. He won the Turnbull Stakes (Group 1, 2000m, Flemington, October 4, 2008) with blinkers on, under handicap conditions and with 52.5kg on his back. It was his race. Then I thought he ran a great Caulfield Cup (5th, October 8), but there was a bit of a question mark over him over a mile-and-a-half. But we got a Group 1 out of him, and you’re doing well if you do that with every horse you get on.

When I’m there, I want to be there. I’m 100 per cent every time. I don’t go there just for the sake of it because I don’t think that’s healthy. Financially, I still have to be there because I’ve got three boys going through school, but I want to be there. You ride better that way. The same goes for riding trackwork. There aren’t many people who like the sound of the alarm clock at 4am, but it’s a whole lot easier when you have a reason to go. When I know who I’m riding for and roughly what horses I’ll be on, and when the horses have a bit of quality about them, I look forward to it.

‘ I don’t want to go

to every meeting, and I don’t, but I still love it.

’

I’m happy to go to race meetings anywhere, as long as I’m a chance to win. There’s no good riding if you’re not competitive.

I want to ride winners. If it’s in your nature, you can’t help but be competitive, even on a 100-1 shot, but there’s no point riding a 100-1 shot if it’s no chance because it’s no good for your confidence. You’re better off picking and choosing and keeping your confidence up for the major races. I’ve been able to maintain my confidence, mainly

When you’re on a horse that should win, you need to win because you can easily be replaced. It has been a good year for that – I’ve been winning on most of them, and hopefully that success grows on itself.

I’ve been rebuilding over the past 12 months, trying to get some smaller stables to support me, with people like John Hawkes and Steve Richards and we’re starting to get a bit of a connection going.

If you can’t get into a big stable of 160 horses, you have to try to get a large pool of horses through four or five different trainers, and that’s what I’ve been trying to do.

If they have 15, 20, 40 each, all of a sudden you can pool together 70 or 80 horses and you’ve got some chance of competing. But if you’re riding for a stable with 70 horses and six jockeys, it just becomes too hard. Hopefully the stables I’m working with get more horses, so the pool increases.

I reckon I’m in my prime. I think my career is still going strong. I’ve always been up there. I think I’ve got it worked out exactly the way I want it, and the people around me understand that. I’m 39, I’m settled, I’ve got the score on the board and I’m as hungry as ever to ride winners. I don’t want to go to every meeting, and I don’t, but I still love it.

KING’S HITS Group 1 wins: 54 (44 in Australia) This season: 1 (Littorio, Turnbull Stakes) First win: My Request, Geelong, 1987 First Group 1 win: Gamine, South Australian Oaks, Morphettville, 1990 Victorian premiership: 1996-97 Scobie Breasley Medal: 1996-97 Biggest wins: Melbourne and Caulfield Cups (Let’s Elope), Cox Plate (Fields Of Omagh), Victoria Derby (Star Of The Realm), VRC and AJC Australian Oaks (Serenade Rose), Hong Kong Sprint and Chairman’s Prize (Fairy King Prawn)

I want to ride more superstars.

I’ve always been on good horses and who’s to say the next one I jump on won’t be the next Let’s Elope or Makybe Diva? It could be just around the corner.

That spurs me on. This spring carnival I’m really excited about the prospect of being on horses like Predatory Pricer and Rostova, and whatever other rides I score.

I’ll try to take my three boys through life like I was taken through life. ( Jordan is 13, Lachlan is 11 and Ben is nine).

They can become jockeys if they want to be – there will be no pressure from me. The great thing about the way the industry works now is that the kids can do their schooling fi rst. We couldn’t do that in my day – we were pulled out of school early.

Now kids can do their Year 12 and still be involved with racing, and still have something to fall back on.

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QA UINELL

home track Their

Kathryn and Craig Durden work horses, run chooks and share the raising of their son, Tristan, 9, on their 10ha property at Moriac, near Geelong. WORDS NEIL KEARNEY. PHOTOS SEAN GARNSWORTHY

K TUITION TIME: Kathryn Durden, on two-year-old Alaskan Sky, a Happy Giggle fi lly, and husband Craig on another juvenile, the Bianconi colt Rum And Eigg, after early-morning work on their Moriac property.

athryn Durden received a riding lesson at Berrima in the Northern Territory for her 13th birthday. From that moment, she was hooked on horses.

Craig Durden grew up in a racing family.

He was seven when he started schooling horses over barrels in the backyard at Ascot Vale. He rode work at Flemington when he was 14.

These days they are partners in life and business – the husband-and-wife team work together from dawn to dusk, but are often rivals on race days.

Kathryn, 43, trains a small team of flat and jumping horses, and Craig, 37, is a champion jumps jockey.

He has won seven Tommy Corrigan medals, and his big race wins include two Grand National Hurdles, two Grand National Steeples, two Hiskens Steeples, three Grand Annuals and a Great Eastern. She has trained the winners of the Galleywood Hurdle and has placings in major steeplechases.

Who makes the bed?

Kathryn Durden: Both of us.

Craig Durden: One each side, at half past five in the morning.

How did you meet?

Craig: At Lindsay Park (South Australia) in 1988. I had just started an apprenticeship. We rode work together. At first, we didn’t like each other much.

Kathryn: We had a couple of little ‘tiffs’ over horses. He was cocky. I had come back from overseas – six months in England and 18 months in America. We just rubbed each other up the wrong way.

Craig: Nothing’s changed (laughs).

What brought you together?

Craig: I returned to Melbourne in April 1993, after I finished my apprenticeship. I’d only been home for six weeks when my mum (Dawn) died after a massive stroke. She was only 42. It was a big shock. It happened on a Friday, and I rang Kathryn that night to let her know. I didn’t ask her to come over, but she

THE THOROUGHBRED 39

WORK DONE: Kathryn and Craig Durden lean back and reflect on their home-track morning.

was on a plane next morning.

Kathryn: I needed to be there for him. It’s just what you do. Craig is a resilient, stoic person, but he was very close to his mum.

Have you always been interested in horses?

Craig: I grew up with them.

My dad, Rodney, was a jumps jockey – he was C.S. Hayes’ stable rider for 10 or 12 years. I went to Ascot Vale West primary, just across the road from the Showgrounds, and I couldn’t wait to get out of there. At Cup time the teachers would ask us to write something about the Cup. I’d write about jumps jockeys.

They were my heroes. When I was at Footscray Tech, and there were Wednesday races at

Flemington, we’d nick off down the hill at lunchtime to watch the races all afternoon.

Kathryn: My dad was a quantity surveyor, and we moved from Adelaide to Papua New Guinea, then to Darwin and back to Adelaide. For my 13th birthday I got some riding lessons at the Berrima Riding School (in the Northern Territory). I loved it so much; it was all I wanted to do.

When we came back to Adelaide, I got a school holidays job working in a stable. I left school at 16 and approached Peter Hayes (C.S’s son) to ride work at Lindsay Park.

How do you remember Lindsay Park?

Kathryn: I worked for Lindsay Park at Angaston and Flemington for a total of 18 years. Lindsay Park gave me a great education.

When you’re young, it’s such a thrill to educate a young horse.

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I was also able to work on the stud side with yearlings and weaners.

Craig: It was a good place to kick off. We had good times there – a good boss.

Ever think about another career?

Kathryn: No. Craig: I had a stage where I wanted to be a pilot. I was 15, and I did 18 months in the air cadets. But the regimental stuff got the better of me. I didn’t like marching. I still get a buzz out of flying, and I’d like to get a pilot’s licence one day.

Do you ever get away from the horses?

Kathryn: We never get a day off.

The only day we don’t work them is Sunday, unless we’re racing.

On Sundays we get up at 7.30 to feed, and put in another hour in the afternoon.

Craig: Kathryn went on holiday to Egypt in November last year,

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and I got a good appreciation of the headaches involved. I texted her for help, but she wasn’t terribly sympathetic.

Kathryn: My care factor was pretty low. I was cruising down the Nile. Because of what we do, it’s almost impossible to get time off, so I was there to enjoy it.

What do you admire in each other?

Kathryn: What you see with Craig is what you get. He’s a very good jockey. He’s self-critical, very hard on himself. That’s why he rarely makes mistakes.

Craig: Kathryn has a natural kinship with horses; she loves the animal. Her attention to detail is unbelievable. I’d just like to see her get a really good horse; win a Group race.

What is your typical day?

Kathryn: That’s the thing about

QUINELLA

‘Kathryn has

a natural kinship with horses; she loves the animal.’

horses – there isn’t a typical day.

Last week was particularly busy.

We went to the races three times, and to trials, plenty of trips to town. At home, we start work at 6.30 and, between us, we work nine (horses).

We usually ‘do’ five horses before Craig comes into the house at 8am to help Tristan get ready for school.

Craig: Tristan has fitted in from year dot. Two mornings a week we go to the track at Geelong, leaving home at 5am, and Tristan comes with us. We’ve got a bed set up in the truck, and he just curls up in that. When we get home, he goes off to school at Moriac primary, just down the road.

Will Tristan have a future in jumps racing?

Kathryn: The question is: will jumps racing be around when he grows up?

Craig: We’re happy for him to do what he wants to do.

Kathryn: An interesting thing happened the week after the Grand Annual. Tristan’s class has a weekly discussion about the news, where they talk about a topic that’s in the headlines.

The week after the Grand Annual (Steeplechase at Warrnambool in May), they played a video showing the fall and the riderless horses. The children talked about it and they mostly felt that jumps racing should be banned.

I asked Tristan how he reacted to that, and he said he just listened.

I asked him if he said that’s my dad on the video, and he said he just listened. I asked him did he think jumps racing should be banned? And he said: ‘No, I think it’s good.’

How do you feel about the controversy over jumps racing?

Craig: It frustrates us no end. It all comes from people who don’t understand horses.

Kathryn: You hear people say things that show they don’t know what they’re talking about. They have no idea of the realities of working with animals. We had a situation last year where we lost one of our favourite horses, Charted, and we were all very, very sad. I still sook about it. Anyway, Tristan was most upset, I explained to him that Charted had gone to be dog meat; that he was going to feed other animals. It might sound blunt, but that’s the reality. Tristan accepts that Charted had gone to help another life.

How has the criticism of jumps racing affected you?

Craig: A lot. I enjoy jumping for what it is. The excitement of jumping a horse at speed is something I have loved since I was a little tacker. I used to ride ponies bareback as a kid. The thrill of jumping is indescribable.

But we’re always under scrutiny now. You try not to worry about it. But, at the end of each day, you

just hope there’s a clean slate, that no horse has been hurt. Every bad day is ammunition for someone.

Kathryn: From the point of view of a small trainer, jumping races give us a chance to be competitive in good races. In this whole argument about what happens to the horses, people avoid the truth.

When horses are too slow, when they’re finished, well, they do go to the knackery. Much as you’d like to give them away for kids to ride, a lot of times they’re just not suitable. Their temperaments don’t allow it. Jumping races keep a lot of horses and people going.

‘I’d prefer him

to ride my jumper, but it’s a business. He has to ride the horse he thinks has the best chance.’

For a jockey, are falls just part of the job?

Craig: Falling is an occupational hazard. I’ve been lucky, compared to a lot of blokes. If you haven’t suffered head or spinal injuries, you’ve done well. I suppose I’ve fallen between 20 and 50 times.

I’ve broken my left collarbone three times, right collarbone once in three places, a shoulder blade, a wrist, an ankle, sliced ligaments from an ankle, fractured a thumb and broken two or three vertebrae. You kind of learn to fall, but of course that depends how the horse goes down. You try to keep mobile when you fall, keep going forwards.

I get sore sometimes, but I rub a bit of Rapid Gel on. It’s actually a horse product, but it does the job for me.

Kathryn: You can’t worry about falling. Race riding is what Craig does – you just accept it.

You’d drive yourself mad if you

worried about falling all the time.

If Craig has a fall, and I’ve got another horse in the race, I keep watching my horse. What else am I supposed to do? But it’s good if the caller says, “He’s up and everything seems okay” – I like hearing that.

Tell us both your perspectives of the 2004 Von Doussa Steeplechase at Oakbank.

Kathryn: Craig was going to ride Nicobury. It had come to me from New Zealand five weeks beforehand, but wasn’t as fit as I hoped. Craig chose to ride Bello Signor instead. That’s his choice.

Craig: Bello Signor made a mistake at the third jump on the second lap, and shot me out the side. The saddle slipped, and I was hanging around his neck. It took a good four or five strides for me to claw my way back. When I got back on, I had about 40 metres before the log to straighten the saddle and get myself balanced. The excitement didn’t end there – his nose touched the ground after the last, but he recovered to win. We held off Nicobury by two lengths.

Kathryn: I didn’t see the drama with Craig. Nicobury had settled at the back of the field and I only had eyes for him. If I have a horse in the race, I want my horse to win, regardless of anything else. I’m happy for Craig to run second. That day I did hear the caller say, “He’s back on,” and I remember thinking, “That’s Craig, that’s good.” I kept cheering for Nicobury.

Is there ever an issue between you if Craig prefers to ride someone else’s horse?

Kathryn: That’s his call. I’d prefer him to ride my jumper, but it’s a business. He has to ride the horse he thinks has the best chance That’s business.

Craig: Let’s just say it’s not grounds for divorce. But we have won about a dozen races together.

And things are always pretty good on the home-front after we win one together.

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MAKING PUNTING PAY

MULTIPLY YOUR EDGE but keep your sanity Parlays increase your profit because they put your edge back into play for bigger amounts, over and over. WORDS CAMERON O’BRIEN

I PHOTO SLATTERY MEDIA GROUP

n the autumn edition of The Thoroughbred we talked about the ways a punter can increase the likelihood of winning by using the practices of arbitraging in his daily punting. We showed how the 18 per cent advantage of the TAB, and often 20 per cent-plus advantage of the bookmaker, can be worked down to virtually nothing by shopping around for the best odds.

I’d like to stress how important it is that any punters who genuinely wish to win long-term use those tactics.

Bookmakers attempt to win you over with marketing ploys, designed to convince you that they and they alone offer the best odds, but that is a fallacy. If bookmakers were in the business of helping you to win, then bookmakers wouldn’t be in business. Ignore the semaphoring and grandstanding, and concentrate always on getting the best odds possible for your selections.

PARLAY PLAY: form man Cameron O’Brien recommends that you play up your win bets into other races to get an extra edge in the battle with the bookies.

MAKING PUNTING PAY

In this edition, I’d like to discuss how to multiply that edge, so that you maximise the amount you can make from your bets, using parlay and all-up bets.

An all-up bet is when you simply take your collect from one bet and put that whole amount “all up” on to another bet. If they both win, you win big.

A parlay bet is a bit more complicated. It is essentially many different all-ups within one bet, and it occurs over three or more bets. In a three-bet parlay, you actually have four separate all-up bets. If your three bets are called A, B and C then your four bets are as follows: 1 x all-up A into B 1 x all-up A into C 1 x all-up B into C 1 x all-up A into B into C This is essentially three doubles and one treble. As you increase the number of bets, the number of combinations increases quickly.

In a four-bet parlay, there are 11 different bets – 6 x doubles, 4 x trebles and 1 x four-bet all-up. In a five-bet sequence the amount of bets increases to 26, with 10 x doubles, 10 x trebles, 5 x four-bet all-up and 1 x five-bet all-up.

As you can see, parlays can get fairly complicated.

The reason that parlays increase your profit is because of the multiplication of one bet to the next. You are putting your edge back into play for bigger amounts, over and over, and in the end this must equal bigger profits for you.

There is a caveat that comes with parlay betting – it is not for the faint hearted. The way you punt must suit your psychology, and with all-up or parlay betting a bit of nerve is required, and the ability to hold that nerve when big figures come into play.

Let’s take an example again, one where all your selections win.

You have four horses you wish to back over the course of a day, at various meetings throughout Australia. We’ll just call them A, B, C and D. You have a four-horse

THE FOUR - HORSE PARLAY IN A NUTSHELL Leg

Doubles Into

Trebles Into

4 Bet all up into

A

A-B A-C A-D

A-B-C A-B-D A-C-D

A-B-C-D

B

B-C B-D

B-C-D

C

C-D

-

-

D

-

-

-

-

Total of 11 bets – if $100 a bet, investment is $1100.

Each collect is played up until the bracket is concluded.

parlay on them, which is 11 different bet types, at $100 per bet type. This is a total parlay outlay of $1100.

Horse A, racing at Rosehill, is involved in three of the doubles (AB, AC, AD), three of the trebles (ABC, ABD, ACD) and, obviously, also is the starting point of the four-horse all-up ABCD. This means that horse A is in seven of the 11 different bet types. Putting this on manually, you find the best odds for horse A are, let’s say, $5 and you have $700 (seven $100 bets) on him.

Horse A wins, and you have collected $3500 as a result. This has to be divided up among the various doubles and trebles and the four-horse all-up.

Horse B is racing at Eagle Farm, and is involved in three of the remaining four bets, which are two doubles, BC and BD, and one treble, BCD. This means you have to have $300 (three $100 bets) on him to start those bets. He is also involved in finishing the AB double ($500 there to go on) plus he is the second leg of two trebles, ABC and ABD, (another $1000 to go on) and the second leg of the ABCD all up (another $500 on). This means you have a total of $2300 on him. You get the best odds, $4, and he too wins, collecting $9200.

Horse C is coming up fast at Caulfield a few minutes later.

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You have to work out the bets quickly. The C horse begins only one new bet of his own – a double CD – which is $100, but it is the second leg of two doubles, AC and BC, which are respectively $500 and $400. It is the final leg of the ABC treble, which has grown to $2000 ($500 collect on horse A played up at $4 on horse B). And it is the second leg of the ACD treble, which is $500 to go on, the second leg of the BCD treble, with another $400 there, and the third leg of the four-horse all-up, which is another $2000 to go on.

You have to put a total of $5900 on this horse. Sweating, you get best odds of $4.50, and with twisting stomach you watch him win, collecting $26,550.

You are now officially elated and petrified. You know most of that big collect has to be bet again. You attempt a cup of tea, or perhaps something stronger, but you hadn’t eaten due to working out all the complex calculations, and the drink makes your head swim. You sit down, already asking yourself the obvious question ... “Should I just take the win and stop?”

Horse D eventually comes around, three hours later at Morphettville. By this time you’ve worked out the bets and debated endlessly whether you will put them on. Horse D obviously starts

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no new bets, but he is the end of AD, BD, CD, ABD, ACD, BCD and ABCD, and the total amount you have to have on him is $16,400, at best odds of $3.50.

However, the tipster on TVN doesn’t like it, they are backing another on course, you find a million reasons in the form why it now could not win, and you decide not to back it. You “squibbed” it, pocketing the $16,400 plus the collects from the other bets already completed Horse D wins. Your total collect for all your bets would have been $72,450 from an outlay of $1100. Obviously, an exceptional and rare day, but you’ve collected only $31,450, costing yourself $41,000, a good year’s income for many people.

This is the part of all-ups and parlays that is hard to cope with.

This is why I advise no one to do the betting manually like I have outlined above, unless they have a will made from iron and the temperament of Vulcan.

Instead, use the corporate bookmakers who offer these bet types, or the tote. With most corporates you can do a four-horse parlay by selecting your four horses, selecting your amount ($100 for a cost of $1100) and you send it off in one hit.

You can do it across meetings and across states. They work out the result for you. You don’t have to sweat it out.

This, of course, means that you can’t sit and shop for best odds available, but in the case of the parlay this is the small price you pay for peace of mind.

You can still get close to the best odds by following a simple rule: take top fluctuation in your bets if your horse is likely to be less than $4.50, otherwise take best of the three totes. This will get you close to top odds every time. By utilising that rule you will maintain your edge, and convert it into bigger winnings through parlaying.

(Cameron O’Brien is a professional form analyst)

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46 THE THOROUGHBRED

TRACK WORK

THE TEST

Track riders ride millions of dollars of horseflesh every morning. They work under the cover of darkness, under trainers’ instructions and under the radar of most race fans. But they are critical to a horse’s education and preparation. Track riders count.

WORDS PETER RYAN. PHOTOS LACHLAN CUNNINGHAM, MICHAEL WILLSON

T H E T H O RO U G H B R E D 47

TRACK WORK

I

t’s a mistake even the best track riders make to start with. When the horse they are riding quickens they begin to count more quickly. The one… two…three running through their head can quickly shorten to onetwothree as the horse lengthens stride. “You have to train your head to do it properly,” says Joe Agresta, a veteran track rider who, by his own counting, will clock up 30 years with the Bart Cummings stable in January.

“If I’ve got to run 2000 (metres) in two minutes, 2:20 or 2:30 and I’m out a second I’m very disappointed with myself.”

Agresta is one of 1055 registered track riders in Victoria. He has become a permanent fixture in a job where only those who love it last. The work day starts for most at 4.30am. They ride horses with temperaments ranging from beautiful to cantankerous. The glory (or the criticism, it should be said) inevitably goes to the jockey who rides the horse on race day. There are few flash cars where track riders park. If you just looked at the surface it’s no wonder good track riders are becoming harder to find.

Michele Cullen, a track rider for Brian Mayfield-Smith, enjoys every count of ‘one one thousand,

THE WAGE Most track riders earn $8-$20 a ride (depending on skill, experience) and take 7-8 rides over three hours. The trainer incurs WorkCover liability.

Gaining ground is the independent contractor model, where riders are paid a premium per ride, but are responsible for WorkCover and superannuation.

Occasionally, trainers employ riders full-time (average $30,000 a year).

stable at Flemington. One morning on Zankel (B h 2001, Carnegie (IRE)-Happiness (NZ),

by Bluebird (USA)) sticks in her memory as the fastest work she has ever done, flying over 400 metres in 20 seconds: “I still get goosebumps. It was like being on a laser beam. He was that fast and that straight. I could not believe I could go that fast on a horse.”

It’s those moments that keep track riders getting out of bed at a time when only taxi drivers and bakers are awake. Cullen’s fondness for the horse Truly Wicked (Br m 2001, RubitonDizzy Lass, by At Talaq (USA)) is clear: “She was beautiful. It was scary because she was so smooth you did not realise how fast you were going and she never actually got quicker. She used to lengthen out and fly.”

T MICHELE CULLEN: a rider with Brian Mayfield-Smith at Flemington, Cullen says “the animal” is what she loves about track work.

two one thousand’ that defines her morning profession. “It’s the animal,” says Cullen when asked what she loves about being a track rider. It’s a view widely shared by those in the caper.

Raised in Horlicks’ country in New Zealand’s Hawke’s Bay, Cullen could ride a pony before she could walk. When she arrived in Sydney after a short career as a jockey she thought she would supplement her income riding track work. Cullen walked into famous trainer Neville Begg’s Randwick stables and told him she could ride. The smile never left Begg’s face as he said: “That’s nice. The young lady says she can ride horses.” Cullen soon proved she was not telling any tales. She won him over riding horses on a long rein, using her experience to keep the horse relaxed and working as Begg wanted.

Now she begins each day at Mayfield-Smith’s Flemington stable. It is a relationship between

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trainer and worker based on mutual respect and understanding.

Mayfield-Smith knows her value.

“The big thing with someone of Michele’s experience is she is able to give worthwhile feedback. It’s a big help in training your horses,” he said. “She is very good at picking if there is anything wrong with their action. She is nice and quiet on them and does not stir them up and she settles them into a nice pattern and rhythm.” Cullen trusts Mayfield-Smith implicitly, knowing his instinct for a horse and his good sense. “You have got to trust the trainer’s judgement,” says Cullen. “You’re putting your neck on the line for them so you have to trust them to put you on the right horses. When you get on a horse, you don’t want to be thinking, ‘why am I on this one?’”

Some track riders are on a wage, attached to a stable. The majority earn between $8 and $20 per ride. The lure definitely is not money.

“The thrill of being on a fast horse, a horse that can run, is amazing,” said Simone McKernan, who works for Danny O’Brien’s

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he language of the track is best heard coming from the lips of a track rider. It carries a certain mystical rhythm. Agresta speaks as quickly as Shaftesbury Avenue (Ch g 1986, Salieri (USA)Lady Upstage (GB), by High Line (GB)) worked for him on the eve of the 1991 Japan Cup when he relays the instructions he was given and the outcome: “I had to go a mile and a quarter in evens, home three. I’ve come home in 34 under double wraps.”

For the uninitiated it means he had to rate the horse at even time (15 seconds to the furlong) over 2000 metres until the last 600 metres (three furlongs) and then dash home. That Shaftesbury Avenue charged home in 34 seconds under a good hold (or with the feet in his mouth to use another term particular to racing) shows the quality of the work. It also meant Agresta was in trouble because stable foreman Leon Corstens thought at the time he’d let the horse go too quickly.

He hadn’t and an unlucky third in the Japan Cup reflected the horse’s brilliant work.

Unfortunately for track riders there is not always a direct relationship between how a horse

JOE AGRESTA: Bart Cummings’s trusted track rider is coming up for 30 years with the Flemington stable.

works and how it runs on raceday.

“You can get horses that will work like champions on the track and they don’t perform on raceday,” says Agresta. “As soon as I ride a horse I think can win and it doesn’t do anything in a race then, unless it’s got a legitimate excuse, I put a line through it. If every horse raced the way it worked, everyone would have plenty of money.”

This isn’t the only reason Agresta rarely punts these days.

He found it was affecting his professional judgement. “When I first started riding trackwork I was betting every day and then I found horses weren’t working as well and I was making excuses for

them to have a bet. What happens is your mind plays games with you. I wasn’t consistent and I wasn’t concentrating on what I was supposed to be concentrating on. I found if the horse was stopping towards the end of work I’d say ‘but it was still good work’.

You’d try to convince yourself it was good work so you could back it, and then it would lose.”

T

he importance of track riders in the horse’s preparation cannot be overstated. That became obvious as Pat Paetta led dual Group 1 winner Pompeii Ruler (Ch g 6, Genuine (JPN)West With Night (NZ), by Pompeii Court (USA)) back into Mick Price’s Caulfield stable after a morning when the horse went, according to Paetta’s classic

trackwork speak, “second lap 1400 evens with the last 400 in 25, 13 and 12.” The champ, as Paetta refers to Pompeii Ruler, was days away from heading to Singapore to run in the Singapore Airlines International Cup (he finished fourth in the 2000m race) and his track rider understood exactly how he was progressing. “This morning’s work was spot on. He had a little blow,” said Paetta. The rider knows his feedback is respected but he also understands it is the trainer who is boss. “I understand how Mick works his horses and he understands how I rate my horses.”

Paetta began with Price at Epsom in the early 1990s before teaming up with James Riley. He spent time in Queensland before returning to work with Price in

2003. Early in his career Paetta learned to count time by making a stopwatch a regular companion. He would say to himself he wanted to run his last 600 in 36 then count ‘one cat and dog, two cat and dog’.

“I would just practise and practise,”

KEEPING COUNT Nowadays track riders can wear a small light on the side of their helmet that has another use – it emits a beep every second, and saves reciting the ‘one cat and dog, two cat and dog’ timing count that many cut their teeth on.

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TRACK WORK

he said, his commitment to being the best track rider he could be his goal. Paetta said action, attitude and the horse’s breathing were the variables he took into account when assessing a horse.

He pinpointed Light Fantastic (Gr or br g 4, Danehill Dancer (IRE)Leica Or Not (by Kendor (FR)) as a future star, nicknaming the horse ‘the grey Ferrari’ even when many around the track were laughing at him. With Light Fantastic a Group 1 winner (2008 Australian Guineas), no one laughs at him now. Paetta has proved through hard work and dedication that he is as good a judge as any, of both pace and horseflesh.

F

inding a good track rider is not easy. Mayfield-Smith doubts it has ever been simple, but concedes the situation is more acute now than ever. “Even if someone wants to ride it’s pretty hard to teach them in the stables because you have not got the time and you just can’t put a

PAT PAETTA: the Caulfi eld track rider says action, attitude and breathing are the keys in assessing a horse’s work.

greenhorn on them,” he said.

Everyone is noticing how difficult attracting and retaining track riders has become. Agresta reckons he could name 20 to 30 people who have left track riding in the past few years. There is,

many say, little incentive beyond a love of horses for people to remain.

Some point to Japan’s system, which guarantees everyone involved in a winning horse a share in stakes, as a possible idea to reverse the declining numbers

trend. All theorise that as fewer Australians grow up on farms and around animals, the situation is only going to get worse before it gets better.

Cullen believes the industry needs to ask itself how it can become better at managing people so that young people “learn and grow in their role rather than throw in the towel”. Stables, generally, are not environments for people who can’t take criticism or learn from mistakes. Some such as Simone McKernan flourish under pressure.

“When I got yelled at I did not want to get yelled at, so I strived to do it perfectly,” she said. However, many flounder when the heat is on.

It’s worth the effort say those who have done the hard yards.

They know their job gives them a buzz that can’t be found elsewhere.

“When you see a horse go well that you’ve been involved in it’s the best feeling. You feel as though you are part of the team,” said Cullen.

THE LEARNING CURVE

by Peter Ryan You wouldn’t immediately recognise track riders as a scarce resource on a misty winter morning at Flemington. Horses dot the landscape and all have riders on their backs.

However, the skill shortage is real and, in a world that has relied on word of mouth, relationships and recommendation to find employees, change is afoot.

Rob Guest, who manages workforce development at Racing Victoria, is hopeful an RVL initiative can improve numbers – a bridging program involving Racing Victoria, Pony Club Victoria and Glenormiston College will enable 24 young participants to work

with thoroughbreds in an intensive training program from September 27-October 3 that will help them develop the e skills and confidence to be able e to work in racing.

It is a pilot program that, if successful, will be extended. The program has been developed as part of a concerted effort to improve safety within stables to make them more attractive employers for prospective track riders.

Victoria’s Northern Metropolitan College of TAFE also conducts a nationally accredited training program for track riders, Certificate III in Racing (Trackrider). Students in the course fine-tune their skills riding track work for

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TUNNEL TRAFFIC TRAFFIC: work kd done, a stablehand takes a horse home through the tunnel under the track at Flemington while a track rider heads out for a gallop.

220 hours over 16 weeks, not only improving their riding ability but learning how to communicate with trainers and identify factors that might affect a horse’s performance.

Whether such initiatives can turn around the decline in numbers remains to be seen,

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and part of Guest’s ch challenge hallen llenge ge is to convince trainers to use the graduates. “We’re building a racing training system which gives people the right skills. The challenge for the industry is to provide workplace cultures where people want to stay,” he said.

Trainers know the benefits of skilled staff, and they, too, are hopeful that such training initiatives provide more stable prospects.

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S ’ E R O O M AUSTRALIANS ABROAD

N O S A E S

r’s ride e l tab he s t h wit nd, a n aso rm. is se platfo h t ng 0m K10 dy stro HKJC H $ , ed lrea URI earn n an a CALIGI s r E NC ld o nne s ru to bui OTOS VI ’ e r ns PH oo n M , he pla OWELL. h o J t H EN por sup S STEPH RD WO

52 THE THOROUGHBRED

J

ohn Moore has been part of Hong Kong’s growth from a two-bit player to one of the world’s premier racing jurisdictions, and says he could write an accurate history of the former British colony’s journey by horse.

He is, however, more concerned about Moore success, and cementing it.

He says he is the pioneer of the famous racing family, going to Hong Kong in 1971 and riding as an amateur and getting his father, the late George Moore, one of Australia’s great jockeys, to train there.

And while John worked with George as an assistant trainer, brother Gary joined in and won eight jockeys’ premierships until disqualified for five years in 1986 over betting-related offences. Unable to return

UNDER MOORE’S UMBRELLA: John Moore escorts stable jockey Darren Beadman to the scales after Viva Pataca ran second to British visitor Presvis in the Queen Elizabeth 2 Cup at Sha Tin in April. Despite the rain, the defeat and bandages on his face after a bicycle accident a few days earlier, Moore manages a smile; the mud-spattered Beadman is looking to dry off.

MORE TROPHIES: among the Group 1 wins for the Moore stable this season are the Chairman’s Sprint, won by Dim Sum, and the Hong Kong Derby, won by Collection. John Moore is pictured with Dim Sum’s rider, the Victorian James Winks, and with one of the owners of Collection.

to fulltime work in the industry, Gary (57) trains in nearby Macau.

After George retired in 1985, John took over the licence and continued down the premiership path, winning five to 1995. This year, after a late-season push from rivals Caspar Fownes and John Size, 59-year-old Moore just missed winning a sixth (he was second). But his runners earned $HK99.8m (about $A20m), well clear of the others – premiership winner Fownes ($HK56m) and Size ($HK63). Last year Moore was fourth with 47 wins, his horses earning $HK63m.

The return to the top of the pile has been helped by retaining Australia’s champion jockey

Darren Beadman, allowed back late in 2007 by the Hong Kong Jockey Club after he had been sent packing – he was disqualified in 1993 for not allowing a horse to run on its merits.

Moore hopes to reign again next season, and beyond, but knows that his time will be up when he turns 65, the compulsory retirement age. As his father did, John is working on continuing the dynasty, appropriately with a young man named George Moore, his 27-year-old son.

Adhering to the line that worked for Australian racing’s Hayes family (Colin and sons David and Peter), “The future belongs to those who plan for

it,” Moore is grooming George through stable-related work and courses in Australia, although in this generation in Hong Kong succession is not a given. “I carried on from Dad,” Moore said. “I just hope George is given the chance to keep the dynasty going.”

Moore said Hong Kong-raised George decided he wanted to be a horse trainer after getting a degree in information technology and management in the US. Jockey Club rules do not allow Moore Jnr. to be hands on in the stable, but he has clocked horses and done the paperwork, and has become his father’s bloodstock manager in place of Australianbased John Hutchinson. And the

wanna-be trainer has enrolled on the Gold Coast with Traintech, which provides Australian and overseas students with the skills to work in the industry.

“George has gone into the course and is riding trackwork at the Gold Coast and doing everything from vet work to mucking boxes out,” Moore told The Thoroughbred during the recent carnival in Hong Kong.

“He’s started at the bottom again to come back to the club and show them he is certified ... I would hope that they would allow him to become my European riding boy. (Each stable is allowed one European track rider.)

Moore said that if the baton could not be passed, father and son would look at alternatives in another jursidiction – Singapore was the obvious inference. He said of his son, who is 183cm tall: “He is very keen, he is very horsey. He does ride well and he will ride much better, and

BEADMAN ON MOORE ON BEADMAN Over the past two seasons, since trainer John Moore convinced the Hong Kong Jockey Club to give jockey Darren Beadman a second chance, the stable has gone from the top bracket to new heights on the money pile. The partnership will continue next season. This is what Moore and Beadman tell Stephen Howell about each other and their success ...

BEADMAN ON MOORE “John’s been here for nearly 30 years. He’s pretty well part of the furniture, he knows the system really well.

“We seem to work pretty well as a team. I take a lot of interest in what he’s got to say and try to put that into the horses when they’re working of a morning.

He does listen, and asks your advice on different things, which is comforting to know.

“Basically, we’ve got the finger on the pulse straight away. If anything starts to go a little bit amiss with a horse, ‘bang’ we’re on to it.

“Leading up to a horse racing, he likes to put me on it at

least a couple of weeks before and work it through its paces, so we get a good feel.

“I think John’s got another six years, or something, here before he has to retire (at 65). I probably could have that long as well (Beadman is 43). It’s working really, really well and we’ve got a good understanding of each other, so hopefully we can just keep it rolling.”

MOORE ON BEADMAN “The retaining of Darren Beadman from Australia was probably one of the biggest pluses (in the stable’s success) for the simple reason he can

5 4 T H E T H O R O U G H B R E D | SUBSCRIBE NOW

fine-tune with me. He can get on a horse of a morning and say it doesn’t feel right, or it feels right, or it’s peaking, or it’s not, so it’s a help.

“We work very, very closely together ... he will even get on young horses and help to school them, even jump them from the gates. “(Getting Beadman back from Sydney), that’s the reason for the best season in my life.

It was a no-go at one stage to get Darren up here. But (the club realised) bringing Australia’s premier jockey up here would only benefit Hong Kong racing – forgive the past and let him come here, and

www.thethoroughbred.com.au

he’s done wonderfully well. His public following and strike rate to the number of rides he has is fantastic and has been good for Hong Kong racing.

“He’s on a retainer from me, and it’s a good retainer. But I give him the leeway to move into the bigger meetings in Australia. He’s got the best of all worlds.”

(Beadman doesn’t always choose the right stable rides – at the end of May he preferred the emerging Collection over Viva Pataca in the Group 1 Citi Champions & Chater Cup (2400m) at Sha Tin. Weichong Marwing picked up the ride on Viva Pataca, and won.

AUSTRALIANS ABROAD

I’ve already said to him, ‘I want you to have one amateur ride in England. I want you to get a feel’.”

Moore doesn’t hold back, also having a go at the compulsory retiring age in Hong Kong. “I just think I’m getting better,” he said, “with the chance to travel and buy the likes of Collection (his Hong Kong Derby winner this season) and see it come to fruition in this country. In six years I’ll only just be getting going, (Australian trainers) Bart Cummings (81), Jack Denham (85) will be saying, ‘You’re a youngster, still wet behind the ears.’ That’s what Dad always said; but that’s the law.”

An option would be training in Australia, but in a small way on the Gold Coast “because I look after my dollars and I know what it costs to set up”. Or Singapore, where the Singapore Turf Club provides facilities for trainers. In talking about South-East Asian racing’s growth area, Moore said he would like brother Gary to go

there “because Macau is a sinking boat with a small hole ... it just doesn’t have the kudos any more.

I’ve been impressing upon Gary to move on. I see Singapore as being the place for the future.”

The succession has several years to play out, and Moore has his sights on Australia for another reason – he intends raiding the spring carnival in 2010 in a bid to win the Cox Plate with Collection.

It is a race that has special significance because George Moore won it twice as a jockey, on Redcraze in 1957 and Rajah Sahib in 1968.

Collection (B g 2005, Peintre Celebre (USA)-Lasting Chance (USA), by American Chance (USA)) won the Group 1 Hong Kong Derby (2000m, for four-year-olds) in March before finishing fifth in the Group 1 Champions Mile (1600m) in April and third in the Group 1 Champions & Chater Cup (2400m) at the end of May,

after which Moore rested him to prepare for the international meeting in Hong Kong in December after initial thoughts of this year’s Cox Plate.

The gelding is a big part of this season’s success. More correctly, buying horses from England is a big part, plus getting the right local staff “in a place where mediocrity is tolerated”, mixing feed suited to the environment, and retaining Beadman.

“This is a complete unit now, so that adds up to why we have gone to another level,” Moore said of his standout season. Beadman added: “This season’s horses that are racing now, he’s probably got 8-10 that are from Europe, so we’ve got a little bit more variety to choose from. Last year, he had quite a bit of dead wood in his yard.”

Moore continued: “I spent a lot of time, did a lot of driving, visited a lot of stables, pulled a lot of horses out that aren’t for sale because you know that the

stables, with (poor) prizemoney over there, need money to keep the stables running and the horses do come on the market.”

That’s how Moore got Collection, helped by the knowledge that the entire had savaged other animals.

Gelding the colt appeared to be the answer, but the rich Arab owners prefer to leave their horses intact so Godolphin and others steered cleared of the talented entire in William Haggis’s Newmarket yard.

Not so Moore. Under a recent HKJC rule that allows trainers to buy an additional top-class horse a year, Moore bought him for a syndicate of big-spending owners, and had him gelded.

He believes Collection, when he matures more, can make up for Viva Pataca (B g 2002, Marju (IRE)-Comic (Ire), by Be My Chief (USA)) not being able to come for Australia’s premier weight-for-age event at Moonee Valley in 2007 because of the equine influenza outbreak.

TOP TRAINERS Wins Stakes Caspar Fownes

68

John Moore

65 $100m

John Size

61

Tony Cruz

$63m

53

C.H. Yip

45

$50m $32m

TOP JOCKEYS Douglas Whyte

96

Brett Prebble

43

Matthew Chadwick 43 Darren Beadman

41

Weichong Marwing 41 Olivier Doleuze

$80m

79

Zac Purton

38

Figures in HK$ (about five to the A$)

DERBY TRIUMPH: Darren Beadman wields the whip on Collection in his Hong Kong Derby win from Thumbs Up (Christophe Soumillon).

$56m

$65m $37m $31m

$67m $40m $39m

THE AMERICAN TRIPLE CROWN

Mining the

moments

No Triple Crown, but three wins, as Calvin Borel rides into the record books.

WORDS ERIC O’KEEFE. PHOTO DAVID ALCOSSER

Y

ou don’t have to love thoroughbred racing to be a fan of jockey Calvin Borel. Outspoken yet humble and as Cajun as a crawfi sh, the 42-year-old Louisiana native owned the American Triple Crown this year. He may not have won it, but by sheer force of his personality, and two stellar rides, he damn sure owned it.

Make that three stellar rides.

The first took place on May 1, the day before the Kentucky Derby, when Borel piloted Rachel Alexandra to victory in the

THE JOCKEY: Calvin Borel, third in the Belmont after earlier wins in the ‘majors’.

56 THE THOROUGHBRED

Kentucky Oaks (Group 1). Styled after the Epsom Oaks, the 13/8 mile (1900-metre), fillies-only race is the country’s second most popular event. Only its twin brother, the Kentucky Derby, eclipses it. This year’s crowd of 104,867 watched gape-jawed as Borel put the heavily favoured filly on autopilot and guided her to a daunting 20-length victory.

Superlatives abounded after Rachel’s performance. Hall of Fame trainer D. Wayne Lukas described it best when he said, "She was in the 11th race, and the rest of us were in the 12th."

The next afternoon, her jockey capped his weekend at Churchill Downs by snagging an improbable Oaks-Derby double on a Birdstone gelding with a wonderful rags-to-riches story, Mine That Bird. Purchased at auction for $US9500 (about $11,500), Mine That Bird won four of six starts at Toronto’s Woodbine Racetrack. After being named Canada’s champion two-year-old, his lustre quickly faded with ordinary runs, but his standout juvenile campaign enabled him to qualify for a start in the Kentucky Derby.

Too bad no one cared. Not only was the gelding far from

the public’s elect, but his trainer, an ex-rodeo cowboy named Chip Woolley, was even less of a favourite. Forget the Classics.

Woolley had never saddled a runner in a graded stakes race.

For that matter, in the first four months of 2009 he had eked out just one winner. Thanks to an absolutely brilliant performance in the Derby by Borel, Woolley’s 2009 tally doubled to two.

And what a win it was. Anyone who recalls Street Sense’s 2007 Kentucky Derby performance knows Borel is a cunning rail hunter. His nickname, 'Calvin Bo-Rail', bears this out. Squeezed to the back of the field at the start of the Derby, Mine That Bird ran last for much of the early going.

But as the field straightened out of the far turn, 'Bo-Rail' was in his element. Ahead, on the sloppy and sealed track, a sliver of daylight glimmered.

He immediately ignited the afterburners and Mine That Bird, who was yet to be challenged, accelerated effortlessly and raced through the hole. From last to first he roared down the stretch.

Over the final two furlongs (400 metres) he never broke stride, skirted just one horse, and bested Pioneerof the Nile by more than

THE JUMP: winner Summer Bird (Kent Desormeaux) is fourth from the left as the field leaves the gates in the Belmont Stakes. Calvin Borel’s mount Mine That Bird is No. 7, seven out.

six lengths to win in two minutes 2.66 seconds. The margin was the biggest in the Derby in more than half a century.

Afterwards, while America was busy falling in love with Mine That Bird and his cowboy connections, Calvin set his sights on winning the next leg of the Triple Crown: on a different horse. Less than a week after her triumph in the Kentucky Oaks, 'Alexandra the Great,' as Rachel Alexandra was now being called, was sold to a partnership led by California vintner Jess Jackson.

Jackson’s Stonestreet Farms has become a force in American thoroughbred racing, and, as the majority owner of two-time Horse of the Year Curlin, his ultimate goal was to breed the two. What better way to enhance the value

of his new champion than to pay the $US100,000 (just over $120,000) to supplement her into the Preakness?

Buying the filly to breed her to Curlin seemed a sure bet. Buying her to win the Preakness (on May 16) didn’t offer the same odds.

In 133 runnings, just four fillies had won the race. The last time?

During the Dark Ages before Seabiscuit, in 1924.

On Rachel Alexandra, Borel proved his mettle, and he did so by morphing to his mount. Instead of 'lollygagging' at the back of the pack and saving his horse for the straight as he did in the Derby, he wisely took the daughter of Medaglia d’Oro straight to the front and gave her the sort of quiet ride that suited both her style and her temperament. Mine The Bird? Thanks to his stunning Derby performance, his secret was out. After running well back for much of the race, jockey Mike Smith was forced to fan wide

‘ Don’t take

anything away from the little horse. He ran his eyeballs out. He just got beat is all.

’

once the field turned for home.

Then he had to split horses. As the wire approached, Mine That Bird demonstrated that his Derby victory was no fluke, but he couldn’t close the gap on the filly and finished second. Her winning time over 9½ furlongs (1900m) was 1:55.08.

Rachel Alexandra and Borel had proven themselves unbeatable partners. Not only had the filly won the middle jewel of the Triple Crown, but her jockey had etched his name in history.

Never before had a jockey won the first two legs of the American

Triple Crown on different horses.

“She’s the greatest racehorse I’ve been on in my life,” Borel said.

In the Belmont Stakes on June 6, however, it was back on Mine That Bird for Borel – the Woodlawn Vase in his trophy cabinet, Jackson and trainer Steve Asmussen took a long look at sending Rachel to New York before they passed on the 'Test of Champions'. The news did little to faze Borel. After reuniting with Mine That Bird and working the bay gelding, he couldn’t contain himself. “We’re going to win it. No questions asked,” he said.

A son of Birdstone won the Belmont, but it wasn’t the one that many expected. As the 12-furlong (2400-metre) test came to a close, Summer Bird scorched the field down the straight, caught the 'other Bird', and bested Dunkirk by 2¾ lengths to win in 2:27.54.

Mine That Bird was third, a neck back. Afterwards many questioned Borel’s tactics. They said he sent his mount to the front too early.

But as he readily admitted in post-race interviews, he found himself fighting the gelding at the top of the straight. Mine That Bird was all too eager to make his move, and it cost them both dearly.

“He ran his heart out,” Borel said. “No regrets. I thought I was on the best horse going in. It’s been a good roll, and I wouldn’t change it for anything. Don’t take anything away from the little horse. He ran his eyeballs out. He just got beat is all.”

Borel’s comments offered insight on his own mount, but they did little to explain why a horse that ran sixth in the Derby could win the Belmont decisively. To find the answer one only need look in the saddle. At Churchill Downs, Chris Rosier piloted Summer Bird. With only one graded stakes race under his belt, the journeyman jockey was way over his head in the 'Run for the Roses'.

A month later, Summer Bird would be partnered with triple Kentucky Derby winner Kent Desormeaux. For trainer Tim Ice, who turned 35 on Belmont day, it was a game changer, the sort of decision that could improve a horse’s performance by half-a-dozen lengths, maybe more.

Already a Hall of Fame inductee, Desormeaux gave Summer Bird an armchair ride, mimicking Borel’s Derby performance by sitting on the rail and conserving his mount for the first mile and a quarter (2000 metres) before picking off every horse in the field.

The disappointing conclusion made it easy to overlook an undeniable truth: Calvin Borel is one hell of a jockey. His Triple Crown campaign emphatically proved that. He can maximise a mount’s potential to a degree few of his peers can match. But can he produce big bunches of black type results? That has always been the nagging question. Now, thanks to his sterling performances in this year’s Kentucky Oaks, Kentucky Derby, and Preakness, he has shown that he is well on his way to American racing’s Hall of Fame.

THE THOROUGHBRED 57

FOCUS ON NEW ZEALAND

The ground

breaker More than once, John Wheeler has fought his way off the canvas to forge a winning career as a trainer, on both sides of the Tasman, on the flat and over jumps.

WORDS MIKE DILLON. PHOTO BRUNO CANNATELLI

A

month or two ago I called John Wheeler at home at 9.30 in the morning. His partner Linda Jenkins answered. “John’s having breakfast, but I’ll get him,” she said.

Told not to bother him over his cornflakes because I’d ring back, she said: “No, not cornflakes.”

Well, the full monty, then – bacon, eggs and hashbrowns? “No. Crayfish soup.” Crayfish soup!

John Wheeler has never been afraid to do things others don’t even think of. That approach has defined his life and his career as one of Australasia’s champion horse trainers.

Like many great professionals, Wheeler, the trainer from Taranaki (halfway down the western side of New Zealand’s North Island) is almost always at his lethal best when being counted out. And plenty have counted him out, and with good reason.

In the 1980s Wheeler’s accountant illegally stripped his entire financial wherewithal. That Wheeler actually raced horses with the person must

58 THE THOROUGHBRED

have hurt, and there must have been pain like a knife between the third and fourth ribs when he discovered that not only had his mate sent him broke, but he had not being paying the trainer’s tax and Wheeler was in hock to the tax office for close to the price of a small house.

That would have buried many.

Wheeler said later there were times during that period when he couldn’t pay the grocery bill.

This article includes a photo (Page 60) of Wheeler with one of his great mates, Cambridge trainer Frank Ritchie – the pair is holding the champion horses that define their careers, Rough Habit (B g 1986, Roughcast (USA)-Certain Habit (NZ), by Ashabit (GB)) and Bonecrusher (Ch g 1982, Pag AsaImitation (NZ)). Rough Habit had two Doomben Cups, two Stradbroke Handicaps, two All Aged Stakes and a Queensland Derby among his 11 Group 1 wins; Bonecusher “raced into equine immortality”, to quote the great race caller Bill Collins, when he beat Our Waverley Star in the 1986 Cox Plate Group 1).

No one admires Wheeler more than Ritchie. “John’s remarkable, just an amazing person,” Ritchie said.

“No one could have come back from what he’s been through. But he just keeps coming back. The harder he goes down the quicker he gets up. He never feels sorry for himself, he just sets a plan and works to it.

“John’s a pioneer. He started so many things; like who would have ever thought of taking a team of jumpers to Oakbank before he did?

Then they all went. Even (inventive Kiwi trainer) ‘Dummy’ Myers followed John, and ‘Dummy’ doesn’t follow anybody, he’s a pioneer himself.

John’s never frightened to take a step forward and he never lets a stumble slow him down.”

John Wheeler and his brother Lloyd started out as chicken farmers.

It was not until 1981 that Wheeler stepped outside that job and into horse training.

It went well until he ran his first good horse in a stakes race – Arathusa in the Royal Stakes at Ellerslie. It was a shocking wet day and three horses came down

KIWIS RULE: John Wheeler holds aloft Court Ruler’s Queensland Derby trophy at Eagle Farm in June.

FOCUS ON NEW ZEALAND

the outside running rail, with Arethusa the widest. The problem was that the clerk of the course had positioned himself against the rail halfway down the straight. Arethusa shied at the grey horse, interfered with one of the placed horse, but won.

Stewards took the race off the filly and Wheeler was unimpressed. However, it wasn’t to be his worst moment in an inquiry room – it was a massive occasion for Wheeler when Poetic Prince (who raced in Australia as Our Poetic Prince) won the 1987 Caulfield Guineas. He said he would never forget the devastation he felt when stewards gave the race to runner-up Marwong, a decision roundly criticised in the Australian press. “It was a disgraceful decision and I’ll be still saying that on my dying day,” said Wheeler with a lot of feeling.

Wheeler soon had his revenge with Poetic Prince. You can only imagine the delight he felt when he took the horse back to Melbourne the following spring and won the Cox Plate from fellow New Zealanders Horlicks and Bonecrusher. As much as Rough Habit provided Wheeler with enormous elation, he rated that Cox Plate win as his career highlight.

“The second would be Rough Habit’s second Stradbroke, and winning the Nakayama Grand Jump (with St Steven) is a bit of a thrill, especially when the cabbage (money) arrives.”

Asked how many years it was since St Steven won the Nakayama, Wheeler replied: “It must be a few years ago, ’cause the money’s all gone.” It was in 2002.

In serious mode, he said: “I’ve always managed to do well out of racing. I had my money pinched off me, but I’ve got through that.”

Wheeler has had personal tragedy of the worst kind. In 2000 he tragically lost his son Ryan, who was a top rugby player; his wife Lindsay died of cancer in 2003. He handled the tragedies with grace and soldiered on.

CHAMPIONS: Trainer Frank Ritchie (left) with Bonecrusher and John Wheeler with Rough Habit.

One of the unique things that Wheeler has done each season is put his endurance horses through three to four months of what he describes as Olympictype trekking that builds them aerobically before they come into stable work each preparation. It is the secret to why his horses can last in races and through long preparations. “I’ve found that if you can get them to 100 per cent aerobically they will be able to cope with a back-up situation that they won’t be able to manage without it.”

Wheeler does his conditioning work on a hill property he purchased just out of New Plymouth, where he lives and operates his stable.

The benefit of the tough grind given to horses on that property was never better emphasised than when Real Tonic won New Zealand’s greatest jumping race, the Great Northern Steeplechase, at Ellerslie in 2006. It is 6400 metres and three times over the famous Ellerslie Hill, and in 2006 the track was so heavy and testing the race took eight minutes

‘ It must be a

few years ago, ’cause the money’s all gone.

6 0 T H E T H O R O U G H B R E D | SUBSCRIBE NOW

’

50.48 seconds. Racing rarely gets more gruelling than that. (Last year’s Great Northern winner, Hypnotize, ran the distance in 8:15.71, about 35 seconds faster.)

Over the last fence that day I’manace held a one-length advantage over Real Tonic, with the remainder of the field nowhere. It looked certain that the first two positions would remain the same, but Brett Scott got to work on Real Tonic and, under one of the most punishing rides of modern times, Real Tonic found something he didn’t look to have. In the atrocious conditions he got his head past I’manace in the last 50 metres.

Months of gruelling preparatory work made the difference in the last bit of a major race.

“Yes, I’m sure that’s what got Real Tonic home that day,” said Wheeler.

Rough Habit was one of the first horses Wheeler prepared from the hill property. “I used to bring him home from a carnival (in Australia) and throw him on the hills,” he said. “He’d do it tough, then he loved going back to the next carnival after I’d polished him up for a week or two at the stables.”

In southern Australia, Wheeler is well known for the successes flowing from the Mornington satellite branch of his stable.

The key here is highly talented horseman Scott, who has been with Wheeler practically all his time in racing.

www.thethoroughbred.com.au

“He’s a champion bloke,” Wheeler said of Scott. “His only desire is to succeed in everything he does, and people like that always end up very successful.”

Scott was the first in Australia to be licensed as a jockey and a stable foreman and Wheeler admits he relies heavily on the ex-Kiwi horseman.

Wheeler’s astute judgment is emphasised beautifully by Court Ruler’s Queensland Derby victory at this year’s Brisbane winter carnival. Despite a weight-for-age win against the older horses at the Wellington Cup carnival at Trentham in January, Court Ruler (B g 3, Viking Ruler-Free Court (NZ),

by Pompeii Court (USA)) did not appear to be one of New Zealand’s leading three-yearolds. That Trentham win looked an extremely soft option, but Wheeler maintained the horse was a lot better than he looked and that he would eventually prove it. He did at Eagle Farm.

THE WHEELER FACT FILE One of New Zealand’s leading trainers for three decades; Served on the board of NZ Thoroughbred Racing, the industry’s governing body; Prepared three of the star Australasian horses of modern times – the $5million-plus warhorse Rough Habit, Veandercross and Poetic Prince; Won the world’s richest jumping race, the Nakayama Grand Jump, with St Steven in 2002; Won the Great Eastern Steeplechase at Oakbank seven times – 1993 Touch Judge, ’94 Tyrolia, ’95 and ’96 Light Hand, ’97 Foxboy, 2001 St Steven, ’06 Real Tonic.

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TRADING HORSES

THE

Pinhookers Entrepreneurial partners pin their hopes on making American buy-to-sell knowledge work in Australia. WORDS DANNY POWER. PHOTOS SEAN GARNSWORTHY

J

ohn Brocklebank is not the typical horseman who can be seen walking the barn rows at a yearling sale. The American bloodstock agent, with his bushy mop of hair, shabby jeans and joggers, looks more like someone from the back-blocks of Nimbin than a yearling sale buyer of international repute.

But while Brocklebank seems to give scant regard to what he looks like, or moreover what others think of his look – he is far more interested in the appearance of the horses – when it comes to selecting quality yearlings, he is Yves Saint Laurent.

Brocklebank is from the Mormon state of Utah, but he is not a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – his religion is horses, firstly the fast running quarter horse, and now the more refi ned thoroughbred. In fact, he is so consumed by the thoroughbred that he once left a U2 concert after three songs because he felt it was time wasted when he could be looking at and talking about horses.

Brocklebank, along with partners Craig Tillotson, the money man, and Shane Chipman, the breaker and trainer, formed an enviable team in 2003, under the banner of BC3 Thoroughbreds,

62 THE THOROUGHBRED

for the purpose of pinhooking thoroughbreds at the yearling sales. The famous selling grounds of Keeneland became their “Myer” and they shopped astutely.

Nobody really knows the origins of the word pinhook – buying for resale at a profit – but more than likely it came out of the vast cattle sale yards in the southern states of North America, where the “pinhookers” would gather to buy the pick of the cattle from the back of the farmers’ trucks as they arrived at the sale yards. Once a deal was struck for cash, the new owner would “take the risk” by selling the newly acquired livestock at the auction on the same day. Selecting the right stock and paying the right price developed into an art form.

‘ Brocklebank and

his partners are trying to change the landscape of buying racehorses in Australia.

’

The turnaround for pinhooking in thoroughbreds is far less immediate. It can be buying weanlings either at auction or privately from farms for resale at the yearling sales up

to nine months later, or buying yearlings for resale as broken-in, ready-to-run horses as two-yearolds in a similar time span.

Brocklebank and his partners are specialists in converting yearlings to ready-made racehorses, and, since 2003, they have made a big impact on the North American racing scene, and also on their bank manager.

The pinnacle of racetrack success for BC3 came with Brother Derek (B h 2003, Benchmark-Miss Soft Sell, by Siyah Kalem), bought

by Brocklebank for $150,000 as a yearling in 2004 and resold for a $125,000 profit. Brother Derek won the 2005 Group 1 Hollywood Futurity and 2006 Group 1 Santa Anita Derby, and started pre-post favourite for the 2006 Kentucky Derby, fi nishing fourth behind Barbaro.

One of Brocklebank’s biggest pinhooking successes was pre-BC3, when the appropriately named Richter Scale (B h 1994, Habitony-Divine Pet, by Bel Bolide), purchased for $85,000 for a client, resold at a 2YO ready-to-run sale for $825,000.

In his first three years of operation in America, he bought and sold 18 horses, of which eight won Stakes races.

BC3 Australia was launched in 2008 with a new partnership headed by Melbourne-based

RARING TO GO: Shane Chipman has his hands full breaking in this Snitzel colt (ex Gypsy Giaconda, by Peintre Celebre (USA)) at Beaudesert.

TRADING HORSES

chief executive Bill Vlahos and general manager Aaron Corby.

The effervescent ex-jockey Simon Marshall does the marketing.

Brocklebank bought 17 yearlings at the 2008 yearling sales – all from Magic Millions – and put all but one of them, along with others owned by clients, through the 2008 Magic Millions Horses In Training Sale at the Gold Coast in October.

The Australian arm of BC3 is a natural progression for Brocklebank and Chipman, as it gives them a continuity of work that doesn’t exist if they concentrate solely on North America, which involves buying the yearlings at Keeneland in September and reselling them at

PINHOOKER: John Brocklebank bought Magic Millions 17 yearlings early last year, and put 16 of them into the MM Horses In Training Sale at the Gold Coast in October.

64 THE THOROUGHBRED

STEADY AS HE GOES: Shane Chipman walks the relaxed Starcraft colt (ex Shop Girl) around the Beaudesert property.

the Barrett’s Horses In Training Sale in the following March.

In Australia, Brocklebank can be buying yearlings between January and March while Chipman is freezing his chaps off in snow-covered Utah preparing the US 2YOs for the ready-to-run sales. Chipman arrives in Australia in March to work the Australian yearlings through the relative warmth of an Australian winter.

Until recently, BC3 Australia was based in Queensland, on a functional property at Beaudesert, an hour’s drive north-west of the Gold Coast. In June, they announced that they had taken a three-year lease on Peter Sidwell’s well-appointed farm, Sutton Grange, just south of Bendigo, Victoria.

Brocklebank and his partners are trying to change the landscape of buying racehorses in Australia.

It is not going to be easy. The ready-to-run concept has a tremendous following in North America – all the big buyers including Coolmore’s Demi O’Byrne and Godolphin’s John Ferguson are very active – but the

going-horse sale is yet to make an impact with Australian trainers.

Our ready-to-run sales on the Gold Coast (Magic Millions) and in Melbourne (Inglis) are geared up for the Asian market, so there isn’t the urgency for the horses to be primed to go to the races around sale time, as is often the case in North America. Most of the Asian buyers set aside their purchases to prepare for racing as three-year-olds.

This is where BC3 is at loggerheads with the industry, and some other leading pinhookers and bloodstock agents. New Zealand agent Paul Beamish, who buys yearlings for a group of investors to sell at the ready-to-run sales in Australia and New Zealand, doubts Australian trainers will ‘cotton on’ to buying at the ready-to-run sales.

“I think the market always will be directed towards the logical market of the Asians, and to have the horses so trained up as the BC3 horses were on the Gold Coast last year, won’t appeal to the Asian buyers,” he said.

But BC3’s plan is to keep working on trainers in Australia to change their buying patterns to consider in-training two-yearolds. They plan a preview day at Sutton Grange on August 23, when trainers can come to watch the horses in full work. “Our horses are on the market from the time we buy them as yearlings. They can be bought directly from the farm before the sales,” Corby said.

BC3 adopts a radical training regime in preparing its horses. The youngsters are broken in almost immediately after the sales, and they remain in work – in various stages of energy – right through to the sales. Brocklebank said that this constant work helped build bone density in the horse, and this was accentuated working the youngsters on the frozen dirt tracks during a harsh Utah winter.

(Interestingly, noted rehabilitation trainer Peter Morgan told The Thoroughbred (2009 summer edition) that horses that don’t work on tracks but spend too much time

“supported” in water-walkers and swimming, can suffer from a drop in bone density).

The Thoroughbred visited BC3’s Beaudesert farm in June. It is a peaceful and utopian existence for a horse. Every youngster we inspected was content and in tremendous condition – far from revved up and under pressure.

“They are never worked to stress,” Chipman said. “As soon as they show signs they are not coping, we ease up on them, but when all is well, they do something every day, and they love it.”

‘ BC3 adopts a

radical training regime in preparing its horses.

’

Chipman put a son of Starcraft (ex Shop Girl (USA), by Summer Squall (USA)), bought for $70,000 at the Inglis Melbourne Premier Sale, through his paces at Beaudesert. The imposing colt, a replica of his famous sire, was relaxed and confident as he strode around the training track, lengthening and slowing at Chipman’s command. The colt has been in the stables since March – between workouts, he spends resting time in his large box and in a paddock. The Starcraft colt is expected to be one of BC3’s headliners when he breezes a slick 200 metres at the Gold Coast in early October, about three weeks before the sale, which starts on October 28.

Chipman, a former quarterhorse jockey in the US, said that both he and Brocklebank believe the Australian yearlings had more strength and bone than their North American counterparts – surprising considering the Americans also have an emphasis on speed in their pedigrees.

Danny Power and Sean Garnsworthy travelled to Beaudesert as guests of BC3 Australia.

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The first season

smorgasbord

T

here was a time when selling the merits of a first season sire was as tough as promoting a new model of car – most people stuck with their Ford or Holden.

And no matter what credentials a new chum may have carried, proven stallions held the commercial edge.

Then along came the Golden Slipper, in 1957, won by the great Todman, and the emphasis changed to speed; no, precocious speed. Speculating on the best new sire became a big part of the breeding gamble, but the Golden Slipper winners were heavily supported, with great outcomes.

However, getting it right from the start doesn’t always fill the bank account. You have to feel for those breeders who “discovered” Encosta De Lago at Blue Gum Farm, Euroa, in 1997 when his fee was $8500 and getting $30,000 for the resultant yearling was a windfall. Twelve years on and Encosta De Lago is at Coolmore at $220,000 (after peaking at $302,500 in 2008) and most small breeders who supported him in his early seasons cannot afford to go to the stallion.

The competition has become intense, but more so since the Australian breeders became more objective about the new shuttle sires coming through quarantine. Selling the imports can be challenging for the stallions’ owners, because the emphasis has shifted

66 THE THOROUGHBRED

towards the home-grown product – proven under our conditions.

In 2009, there is a feast of first season sires (about 40 when The Thoroughbred went to press) – two Epsom Derby winners, a Golden Slipper winner, a Blue Diamond winner, a world champion miler, a world champion middle-distance star, an unbeaten European 2YO champion, a freakish North American 2YO champion and a sensational track record breaking 3YO sprinter.

Australia has the best of both hemispheres. Widden Stud’s 2008 Golden Slipper winner Sebring (by More Than Ready) is competing for mares against such stars as: world champion miler Henrythenavigator (by Kingmambo), standing at Coolmore; Darley’s Epsom Derby winners, New Approach (by Galileo) and Authorize (by Montjeu); Coolmore’s Duke Of Marmalade, the last great son of Danehill; and Widden’s exciting sprinting pair, Northern Meteor (by Encosta De Lago) and the precocious US champ War Pass (by Cherokee Run).

And there is something for everyone, across all fee ranges – sensational sprinters and, for the patient few, some wonderful stayers. This special promotion by The Thoroughbred offers an insight into some of the first season sires, listed under their sire-lines. The commentary in this promotion has been written by The Thoroughbred’s DANNY POWER.

WOULD BE KING: champion miler Henrythenavigator, a son of Kingmambo, will stand at Coolmore.

Danehill/Danzig line ASTRONOMER ROYAL (USA) (b h 2004, Danzig (USA)–Sheepscot (USA), by Easy Goer (USA)) 16.1hh

Fee: $16,500 (inc. GST) Standing at: Blue Gum Farm, Euroa, Vic. Contact: Philip Campbell (03) 5795 3331 (m) 0418 556 771

There is a lot more to Astronomer Royal than the fact he is the last significant son of the breed-shaping sire Danzig (sire of 200 Stakes winners).

Importantly, Astronomer Royal is a classic winner – he won the 2007 Group 1 Poule d’Essai des Poulains (1600m), also known as the French 2000 Guineas, at Longchamp. The winners of this classic read like the Who’s Who of world breeding, including champion sires Kingmambo, Linamix, Blushing Groom, Irish River, Riverman and Green Dancer.

Astronomer Royal is one of the most impressive-looking sons of Danzig to go

to stud – he has size, balance and a majestic head – and he has a pedigree that will cope with another cross of Northern Dancer blood. Significantly, Mr. Prospector line mares also provide another avenue to Mr. Prospector’s sire-line through Astronomer Royal’s dam-sire Easy Goer.

Astronomer Royal’s granddam, Escrow Agent, is by El Gran Senor, a grandson of the internationally famous broodmare influence Best In Show, so he looks tailor-made for mares carrying her blood through stallions Umatilla, Last Tycoon, Spinning World, Redoute’s Choice, Xaar, Try My Best or Masterclass.

BARBAJUAN (IRE) (b h 2001, Danehill Dancer (IRE)–Courtier (IRE), by Saddlers’ Hall (IRE)) 16.1hh

Fee: $6600 (inc. GST) Standing at: Eagle Park Stud, Orange, NSW Contact: Michael Glenn (02) 6365 4491 (m) 0409 068 765

It was Danehill Dancer, now one of the world’s top sires, who first lit the torch in Europe for his famous sire Danehill.

The year was 1995, when DD won two of Ireland’s Group 1 2YO features – the Irish National Stakes (1400m) and the Phoenix Stakes (1200m), both at the Curragh.

This was after Danehill had begun his stud career in sensational fashion in Australia, siring the Golden Slipper winners Danzero (1994) and Flying Spur (1995).

Eagle Park’s Barbajuan, a son of Danehill Dancer, also was an outstanding juvenile in England and Ireland. He won the 2003 Group 3 Solario Stakes (1400m)

at Sandown and was placed third in the Group 1 Gran Criterium (1600m, San Siro, Milan). He also finished a good fourth in the National Stakes and the Group 2 Coventry Stakes (1200m) at Royal Ascot.

At three, Barbajuan was sold to race in Macau and Hong Kong. In Macau, he won the 2006 Group 3 Winter Trophy (1800m) at Taipa. Barbajuan is another product of inbreeding, like his grandsire Danehill, to Northern Dancer’s dam Natalma (5x5x5).

The Danehill line’s great record over mares with Sir Tristram and Star Kingdom blood should be enough to encourage breeders to consider Barbajuan at his value fee.

DUKE OF MARMALADE (IRE) (b h 2004, Danehill (USA)–Love Me True (USA), by Kingmambo (USA)) 16hh

Fee: $33,000 (inc. GST) Standing at: Coolmore, Jerrys Plains, NSW Contact: (02) 6576 4200

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Duke Of Marmalade is the last great son of Danehill – and great sons of Danehill (sire of 88 Group 1 winners) have a habit of becoming great sires themselves.

Danehill’s best racetrack performers are proving to be outstanding stallions. Duke Of Marmalade, a five-times Group 1 winner and three-times Group 1 placed, should be no exception. He had the versatility to win over 1400m before training on to be dominant between 2000m and 2400m.

The athletic Duke Of Marmalade, who possessed a scintillating turn-of-foot, has the performance and pedigree credentials equal to any son of Danehill at stud.

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Not only does he come from a stallionproducing family, which includes champion sires A P Indy, Lemon Drop Kid, Raja Baba and Summer Squall, but also he has a pedigree that can accommodate the plethora of mares with Northern Dancer bloodlines in Australia and New Zealand.

Breeders should look at matches for The Duke sired by his close relations Bite The Bullet, Spectacular Spy and Honor Grades, and mares with Bletchingly (particularly Canny Lad) bloodlines – the DanehillBletchingly cross has produced 25 Group winners. Danehill and Kingmambo also match up with mares with Nijinsky blood.

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EASY CHOICE (b h 2004, Redoute’s Choice–Singles Bar, by Rory’s Jester) 16hh

Fee: $3300 (inc. GST) Standing at: Noor Elaine Farm, Euroa, Vic. Contact: Mark Calwell (03) 5795 1400 (m) 0417 547 394

Easy Choice is perfectly named. When Hall of Fame trainer Lee Freedman first set eyes on the colt as a yearling, he knew he had to have him. Freedman paid $1.6 million for the son of Redoute’s Choice at the 2006 Inglis Easter Yearling Sales.

Easy Choice, unraced, is a brother to Arrowfield’s exciting first-crop sire Not A Single Doubt, who is vying for the title of Champion First Season Sire (2008-09). Both young stallions are out of the fast Rory’s Jester mare Singles Bar, who is a half-sister to former outstanding stallion Snippets.

This high-profile Australian family received a boost on June 25, when Easy Choice’s 2YO brother Rogano scored a brilliant debut win at Canterbury. Also from this precocious

family is the Golden Slipper winner Forensics, Golden Slipper runner-up Zizou and the top class Group 1 winning mare Rewaaya.

Easy Choice has furnished into a magnificent horse. He has the style and pedigree to leave early runners. No doubt mares with Snippets in their pedigree offer an in-breeding option; and although there are three crosses of Northern Dancer in Easy Choice’s pedigree, they are distant enough to accommodate another cross.

Redoute’s Choice, like his sire Danehill, crosses perfectly well with the lines of Star Kingdom (Stratum), Sir Tristram (Samantha Lass) and Mr. Prospector (Miss Finland). Any mare with Storm Bird in the pedigree also appeals for Easy Choice.

KAPHERO (b h 2003, Danzero–Kapchat (NZ), by Centaine) 16hh

Fee: $11,000 (inc. GST) Standing at: Swettenham Stud, Nagambie, Vic. Contact: Ian Rimington (03) 5794 2044 (m) 0419 887 184

Kaphero fits the mould of the successful Australian sires of modern times – by a Golden Slipper winner, Danzero, from the family of one of the greatest of Golden Slipper winners, the star filly Courtza (Kaphero’s second dam Kapelle Lady is a half-sister to Hunza, the dam of Courtza).

Kaphero, from the Group 1 winning mare Kapchat, should inject good looks, athleticism and strength into his foals. He was a brilliant 2YO, who after winning the 2006 Listed Blue Diamond Preview (1000m), running the trip in a slick 55.8secs, went on to win the MM 2YO Classic (1200m) at Morphettville.

His brilliance and durability were evident when he won the 2008 G3 Ian McEwen Stakes (1000m) at Moonee Valley – one of his 10 wins (he twice lumped 61.5kg) – before he finished a close third in the 2008 Group 1 Manikato Stakes (WFA 1200m, Moonee Valley) won by Typhoon Zed. The obvious mating for Kaphero is with mares by champion NZ sire O’Reilly, a son of Courtza, who also is a proven match with Kaphero’s dam-sire Centaine.

Don’t be afraid to inject Mr. Prospector blood (especially through Straight Strike) – the cross has worked to produce Danzero’s champion son Dance Hero.

MR MARTINI (br h 2001, Bianconi (USA)–Posy, by Marauding (NZ)) 16.3hh

Fee: $3025 (inc. GST) Standing at: Copenhagen Stud, Somerville, Vic. Contact: Jan Lonie (03) 9580 2878 (m) 0409 380 288

Mr Martini joined some illustrious names, many who went on to become great stallions, when he won the 2004 Group 2 Bill Stutt Stakes (1600m) at Moonee Valley.

The Stutt, formerly the Moonee Valley Stakes, has been won in recent times by champion sires Encosta De Lago, Zabeel, Century and Canny Lad. Other winners to go on to stud careers include Red Anchor, Viscount, Helenus, Blevic, Beau Sovereign and Taj Rossi.

Apart from that tick for Mr Martini’s stud prospects, he also boasts a pedigree of international significance. Not only is he a grandson of the world-class super sire

Danzig, but his granddam Strawbrette (Whisky Road–Giftisa) is a sister to the legendary Strawberry Road, one of Australia’s best racehorses and a champion sire in North America.

Mr Martini’s dam Posy is by Golden Slipper winner Marauding (by Sir Tristram from a Biscay mare), and the MaraudingWhiskey Road cross is a dominant influence in the pedigrees of outstanding gallopers Grand Armee, Absolute Champion and Dealer Principal.

Mr Martini’s pedigree will cross beautifully with mares with Star Kingdom blood – thanks to the presence of Danzig.

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Danehill/Danzig line (continued) MUTAWAAJID (b h 2003, Redoute’s Choice–Elated Lady, by Vain) 17.2hh

Fee: $8800 (inc. GST) Standing at: Emirates Park Murrurundi, NSW Contact: Dr Shalabh Sahu (02) 6546 6550 (m) 0408 466 777

There are few more imposing stallions than Mutawaajid. This magnificent son of the champion sire Redoute’s Choice is one of the more interesting young stallions to cover his first book in 2009.

The big horse won his first five starts in brilliant style – two as a 2YO – before he was sent to England to compete against the world’s best. His four starts in England were meritorious considering he was at a big disadvantage under the weight-forage system. He still ran a gallant fourth in the 2007 Group 1 Haydock Sprint Cup (1200m), less than three lengths from the winner Red Clubs.

Mutawaajid has a pedigree of speed. His dam Elated Lady is by the great sprinter and sire Vain (by Wilkes). This also is the pedigree of Bart Cummings’s sensational galloper Shaftesbury Avenue (by Salieri), a half-brother to Elated Lady and the winner of the Group 1 sprint double, the Lightning Stakes and Newmarket Handicap.

After Mutawaajid won the G2 Royal Sovereign Stakes (1200m) and the G2 Hobartville Stakes (1400m), his jockey Hugh Bowman said he was “the first really serious horse I have ridden”. Mutawaajid matches up well with the blood of Northern Dancer, Mr. Prospector and Sir Tristram.

MYBOYCHARLIE (IRE) (b h 2005, Danetime (IRE)–Dulceata (IRE), by Rousillon (USA)) 16.1hh

Fee: $14,300 (inc. GST) Standing at: Vinery Stud, Scone, NSW Contact: Adam White (02) 6543 8333 (m) 0414 800 918

Vinery’s decision to secure Myboycharlie for stud duties in 2009 commands a deal of respect. Not only did the famous Hunter Valley stud beat other studs to this horse, but it also shows that Vinery’s due diligence on their stallions is second to none.

The Group 1 winning 2YO – he won the G1 Prix Morny (1200m) at Deauville in France – has the bone, big muscle and pedigree to suit the speed-oriented Australian mares.

The Prix Morny – France’s Golden Slipper equivalent – has been a source of some champion sires, including Blushing Groom, Irish River, Machiavellian and Zafonic.

Danetime (by Danehill), the sire of

Myboycharlie, was twice G1 placed – thirds in the 1998 July Cup (1200m) and the 1998 Haydock Sprint Cup (1200m). Danetime, who died in 2005, has been an outstanding sire in England and Australia – he stood in WA where the G1 Kingston Town Classic (1800m) winner Megatic is one of his eight Stakes winners.

The matching of the great broodmare Thong in Myboycharlie’s pedigree appeals.

Thong is the dam of Thatch, the grandsire of Myboycharlie’s granddam Snowtop (by Thatching), and she also appears in the pedigrees of some of the world’s great sires, including Nureyev and the brothers Sadler’s Wells and Fairy King.

PRINCE ARTHUR (b h 2002, Danehill (USA)–Scribbling, by Palace Music (USA)) 16.1hh

Fee: $3850 (inc. GST) Standing at: Think Big Stud, Burradoo, NSW Contact: Duncan Ramage (02) 9663 3030

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Prince Arthur represents what is best about his famous sire Danehill – versatility.

Prince Arthur was not only competitive as a sprinter – he won at 1400m and twice at 1600m – but he trained on to win twice at Stakes level over a distance – the Listed Frank Underwood Stakes (2000m) and the Listed Australia Day Cup (2400m).

Prince Arthur is from one of the hottest families in the Stud Book. His dam Scribbling is a daughter of the broodmare gem, Princess Tracy. This makes Prince Arthur a close relation to Princess Tracy’s Group 1 producing sire-sons Danasinga and Towkay, and Darley’s promising Shaft.

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Princess Tracy’s daughter, the champion race filly Tracy’s Element, is the dam of Peter Moody’s exciting, unbeaten filly Typhoon Tracy, winner of the 2009 Coolmore Classic (G1, 1500m, Rosehill).

Because Northern Dancer is on the fourth remove of Prince Arthur’s dam-line, he can cope with more ND blood in his mares, perhaps through Royal Academy (Nijinsky), the sire of Prince Arthur’s G2 winning half-brother Prince Of War. Mares with Star Kingdom blood will match perfectly with Prince Arthur’s sire-line.

Importantly, Prince Arthur’s family has done very well with Last Tycoon mares.

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PUBLISHING (br h 2003, Testa Rossa–Sally Magic, by Keltrice) 16.1hh

Fee: $4400 (inc. GST) Standing at: Raheen Stud, Gladfield, Qld. Contact: Basil Nolan (07) 4666 1172 (m) 0407 140 711 (m) 0407 162 296

It seemed only a matter of time before a son of Testa Rossa emerged as a stallion prospect. There should be a lot of interest in Publishing, a brilliant multiple Groupwinning sprinter, in the image of his sire.

Publishing, who won the G3 Standish Handicap (1200m) and G3 Carlyon Cup (1400m), possesses all that is good about Testa Rossa – a deep and muscled shoulder, a thick and powerful rear end, and a beautiful action.

He also comes from one of the great families in the Australian Stud Book. His fifth dam Mintaway was a champion who won the 1959 VRC Oaks, but she also is

the third dam of the champion sprinter and outstanding sire Rancher. Publishing boasts a double cross of Vain, and when you couple that with his Danzig sire-line and Century (sire of his granddam Sleep Time Girl), you get a wonderful mix of the best of Australia’s sprinting bloodlines.

Publishing matches with most sire lines, and mares with the blood of Special (dam of Nureyev, granddam of Sadler’s Wells, Fairy King and Testa Rossa’s sire Perugino) and her granddam Rough Shod will match.

Don’t be afraid to double on Danzig, as that cross worked to produce Testa Rossa’s brilliant daughter Rostova (by Anabaa).

SHARKBITE (br h 2003, Redoute’s Choice–Back Pass (USA), by Quest For Fame (GB)) 15.3hh

Fee: $7700 (inc. GST) Standing at: Byerley Stud, Sandy Hollow, NSW Contact: Martin Hawcroft (m) 0419 777 663 or Kelvin Williams (02) 6547 4558

PEDIGREE NOTES One of the reasons for the success of the Danzig/Danehill line in Australia, is the way it has nicked with mares carrying the blood of the great Star Kingdom (Hyperion-line).

The result has been some of Danehill’s best progeny, including Redoute’s Choice (ex-Canny Lad mare), Danzero (ex-Kaoru Star), Catbird (ex-Marscay), Elvstroem (ex-Marscay), Merlene (ex-Luskin Star), Fairy King Prawn (granddam

by Bletchingly) and Dane Ripper (granddam by Shifnal).

Sharkbite is one of only two Stakes-winning sons of the champion sire Redoute’s Choice to retire to stud in the Hunter Valley in 2009.

Sharkbite was a smashing $900,000 Easter yearling. He showed enormous talent and was considered a colt with Group 1 potential. Sharkbite was unbeaten in two 2YO starts and competed against the best 3YOs in the spring, finishing second to star colt Haradasun in the Listed Vain Stakes (1100m) at Caulfield (beating Churchill Downs and Green Birdie) and he also finished third, as favourite, in the Group 3 Caulfield Guineas Prelude (behind Guineas victor Wonderful World).

A back injury hindered Sharkbite’s racing career, but he trained on to win brilliantly down the straight 1200m at Flemington, before winning the 2007 Listed Lord Stakes (1700m) at Caulfield.

Sharkbite is from arguably the best female family in the world today. His dam is a half-sister to star UK 2YO Three Valleys.

This is the family of super mare Hasili, dam of five G1 winners as well as G2 winner Dansili (by Danehill), who is one of the best stallions in Europe. A wide variety of mares should cross well with Sharkbite and a full pedigree and mating analysis is set out on www.byerleystud.com.au.

Importantly, Danehill, who is inbred to Northern Dancer’s dam Natalma (3x3), matches well with another dose of Natalma through the Northern Dancer-line, or through Natalma’s dam Almahmoud (who is more than likely the true inbreeding link) through a variety of other sources. The great Northerly has a triple cross of Northern Dancer (3x5x4), and last year’s US superstar Big Brown is a DanzigNureyev (by ND) cross, while Redoute’s Choice’s granddam is by Nijinsky (by ND) and Fastnet Rock is out of a Royal Academy (by Nijinsky) mare.

Of course, Danehill, and Redoute’s Choice, have matched with Sir Tristram/

Zabeel mares to produce Samantha Miss, Nothin’ Leica Dane, Viking Ruler, Darci Brahma and Lotteria.

If you have to avoid ND, then go behind his pedigree and look to his important ancestors – Nearctic, Native Dancer, Natalma and Almahmoud.

The best result is Mr. Prospector (Native Dancer-line) and Halo (out of Cosmah, a half-sister to Natalma). Miss Finland and Flying Spur are out of Mr. Prospector-line mares. Danzig-Roberto cross is very successful in the northern hemisphere, and very much so in reverse in Australia. Roberto line mares in Australia descend from Red Ransom and At Talaq.

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.

Mr. Prospector line FLORAL PEGASUS (ch h 2002, Fusaichi Pegasus (USA)–Crown Crest (GB), by Mill Reef (USA)) 16hh

Fee: $9900 (inc. GST) Standing at: Cherokee Rose Stud Lancefield, Vic. Contact: Danny Rose (m) 0418 389 877

The cauldron that is Hong Kong racing is the most competitive and international in the world – with a helter-skelter tempo most like Australian racing in its style.

It takes a very special horse of the highest standard to reach the top echelon in Hong Kong, and that’s exactly where the Australian-bred Floral Pegasus was over two stellar seasons, when he was rated the best “miler” in the colony.

Floral Pegasus won nine (1200m – 1800m) of his first 18 starts, including the Group 1 Hong Kong Classic Mile (1600m) at Sha Tin in 2007. He also won the Group 2 Hong Kong Derby Trial (1800m, Sha Tin) and the

G3 Chinese Club Challenge Cup (1400m, Sha Tin). Three times he was runner-up at G1 level – the HK Derby (2000m), HK Gold Cup (2000m) and Stewards’ Cup (1600m).

Fusaichi Pegasus is already a proven cross with mares with Star Kingdom blood – Fu Peg’s triple Group 1 winner Haradasun is out of a Marscay mare. Floral Pegasus has a pedigree primed for mares with Northern Dancer blood, especially through Sadler’s Wells and his brother Fairy King (sire of Encosta De Lago) and close relation Nureyev, as they match so perfectly with the great Mill Reef (by Never Bend), the sire of Floral Pegasus’s dam Crown Crest.

HENRYTHENAVIGATOR (USA) (b h 2005, Kingmambo (USA)–Sequoyah (IRE), by Sadler’s Wells (USA)) 16hh

Fee: $38,500 (inc. GST) Standing at: Coolmore Jerrys Plains, NSW Contact: (02) 6576 4200

Henrythenavigator is one horse who has lived up to his exceptional pedigree. He is a son of Mr. Prospector’s most influential turf son in Kingmambo, from a champion Group 1 winning 2YO filly in the Sadler’s Wells mare Sequoyah, who is from one of Ireland’s best Group 1 winning families.

History shows that the very best stallions were supreme at 1600m, and Henrythenavigator’s four outstanding Group 1 wins – all in succession – were at that classic distance, including a track record in the St. James’s Palace Stakes at Royal Ascot, and decisive victories in the English and Irish 2000 Guineas.

Twice he beat Epsom Derby winner New Approach – in each Guineas – and he downed Breeders’ Cup winner Raven’s Pass in the Group 1 Sussex Stakes at Goodwood. Henrythenavigator, is inbred to Special (dam of Nureyev – the dam-sire of Kingmambo – and granddam of Sadler’s Wells (sire of Henrythenavigator’s dam) and Fairy King). He has let down into a imposing stallion.

He is a perfect match for the large numbers of Danehill-line mares in Australia, and pedigree buffs also will be keen to link mares with the blood of Rough Shod, the granddam of Special.

REAAN (b h 2005, Hussonet (USA)–Ribe, by Danehill (USA)) 16.2hh

Fee: $16,500 (inc. GST) Standing at: Lindsay Park, Angaston, SA Contact: Sam Hayes (08) 8561 3800

The list of Australian Group 1 winning 2YOs going on to become outstanding stallions is as long as your arm.

Take a look at this incredible group of colts – Redoute’s Choice, Flying Spur, Danzero, Catbird, Canny Lad, Marauding, Marscay, Sir Dapper, Luskin Star, Vain, Todman, Zeditave, Rancher and Bel Esprit.

Reaan, who will stand his first season at the famed Lindsay Park, Angaston, South Australia, comprehensively won the 2008 G1 Blue Diamond Stakes (1200m) at Caulfield.

The stunning-looking Reaan combines the blood of two of the world’s greatest sires in recent times, the champions Hussonet (by Mr. Prospector), the sire of Reaan, and Danehill (by Danzig), sire of Reaan’s dam Ribe.

We didn’t know it at the time, but Reaan’s debut maiden 2YO win at Bendigo, in October 2007, was an indication of what was to come. The runner-up Buckets went on to be competitive against the 2008 G1 Caulfield Guineas winner Whobegotyou, while the third-placed Portillo finished third behind Sebring in the G1 Golden Slipper. Reaan, who won three of his four 2YO starts, had his career cut short by a bout of pneumonia during the spring of his 3YO season.

Reaan’s dam Ribe, winner of the 2003 G2 MV Oaks (2040m), is a product of the renowned Danehill-Sir Tristram cross.

Reaan’s pedigree handles mares with Northern Dancer blood, and also is suited to mares from the Halo, Storm Cat and Roberto sirelines.

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WAY OFF (ch h 2003, Way Of Light (USA)–Scenic Twig, by Scenic (IRE)) 16.2hh

Fee: $2750 (inc. GST) Standing at: Carin Park Stud, Hamilton, Vic. Contact: Maggie Cumming (m) 0400 828 256

PEDIGREE NOTES Mr. Prospector, the dominant sire in the US in the last 25 years, is a proven cross over the other most dominant sire Northern Dancer. Note that Mr. P’s Kentucky Derby winner Fusaichi

Way Off proved himself to be a top class 2YO when he won one of Queensland’s premier juvenile races, the 2005 Listed J F Meynick Stakes (1200m) at Eagle Farm – a race won by some outstanding colts who have gone on to become stallions, including Falvelon, Guineas, Snippets, Daybreak Lover and Zephyr Zip. Injury forced Way Off to miss his 3YO season, and he was retired as a 4YO. Way Off is an ideal stallion for pedigree buffs operating at the bottom end of the commercial breeding spectrum. He is by Woodman’s Group 1 winning son Way Of Light, who is a close relation of the

great Danehill and also from the family of Northern Dancer and other champion sires, including Machiavellian and Halo.

And he is also from the family of Australia’s champion speed sire Rory’s Jester – the mating of Rory’s Jester family to the family of Danehill has already produced a Golden Slipper winner in Ha Ha. It comes of no surprise that Way Off was a precocious juvenile.

Adding further impetus to his pedigree is the fact his dam, Scenic Twig, is a daughter of Scenic (by Sadler’s Wells), who has had such an impact on Australian racing since his death in 2005.

Pegasus is out of a mare inbred to Northern Dancer’s granddam Almahmoud (Danzig mare from a Halo mare). The same cross also produced Machiavellian (sire of Street Cry).

Kingmambo is Mr. Prospector’s most influential turf producing son.

Kingmambo is out of a Nureyev mare,

and he doubles well with mares with a dose of Nureyev’s great granddam, the influential Rough Shod. Line-breeding sire-lines of Mr. Prospector hasn’t done as well as it does with Northern Dancer, but matching Mr. P over other sources of his sire-line through his sire Raise A Native (by Native Dancer) has worked.

Read every Thursday at thethoroughbred.com.au A weekly analysis of the Australian thoroughbred breeding industry

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THE THOROUGHBRED ADVERTISING PROMOTION

Storm Cat line EAVESDROPPER (USA) (b h 2000, Kingmambo (USA)–Weekend Surprise (USA), by Secretariat (USA)) 15.2hh

Fee: $5500 (inc. GST) Standing at: Emirates Park, Murrurundi, NSW Contact: Dr Shalabh Sahu (02) 6546 6550 (m) 0408 466 777

A lot can be expected of a young stallion when he is a half-brother to one of the world’s top sires.

Eavesdropper falls into that category.

The powerfully built young sire is a halfbrother to US Horse Of The Year A P Indy (by Seattle Slew), who has emerged as

a champion sire in North America. Both stallions are from the great mare Weekend Surprise, who also is the dam of the Group 1 Preakness Stakes winner, and leading sire, Summer Squall (by Storm Bird).

While Eavesdropper, a son of Kingmambo (by Mr. Prospector), didn’t reach the racetrack heights of his two half-brothers, there is a history of this family producing a top class stallion from moderate beginnings.

Honor Grades, a Stakes-placed half-brother, by Danzig, to Eavesdropper, was shuttled from North America to New Zealand in the 1990s, and proved himself a terrific sire in both hemispheres. His 17 Stakes winners included the Group 1 winners Honor Babe, Honor Bound and Honor Glide.

Eavesdropper has sired eight winners from limited opportunities in North America, including the Stakes-placed Hear No Angel, who is from a mare with Danzig

bloodlines – so the plethora of Danzig-line mares in Australia will suit this stallion.

It’s worth noting that four of Kingmambo’s best Group 1 winners, including the exciting Henrythenavigator, are from Sadler’s Wells-line mares. Sadler’s Wells matches nicely with his close relation Nureyev, the sire of Kingmambo’s famous dam Miesque.

PEDIGREE NOTES Storm Cat’s sire Storm Bird (by Northern Dancer) is genetically linked to another great ND son, Nijinsky. Both are out of Bull Page-line mares. Three of Storm Cat’s best G1 winners are out of Blushing Groom-line mares. Consider daughters of sons of Rahy (Noverre and Fantastic Light). Mr. Prospector-line mares and mares with Secretariat (Dehere is a source) match well with Storm Cat.

Halo line READY’S IMAGE (USA) (br h 2005, More Than Ready (USA)–Clever Phrase (USA), by Clever Trick (USA)) 16.2hh

Fee: $11,000 (inc GST) Standing at: Lincoln-Walmac Associated Farms Scone, NSW. Contact: Nick Posa (02) 6545 9323 (m) 0417 903 578

More Than Ready’s fastest North American son Ready’s Image arrives in Australia not only, as his name suggests, in the image of impressive sire, but with a similarly brilliant race record.

Ready’s Image, like his sire, was an exceptional juvenile. He also won the

74 T H E T H O R O U G H B R E D | SUBSCRIBE NOW

same two feature 2YO races as More Than Ready, and in similar brilliant fashion – the Group 2 Sanford Stakes (1200m, Saratoga, NY, by 4lens) and the Listed Tremont Stakes (1100m, Belmont, NY, by 7.75lens).

Todd Pletcher said Ready’s Image is the best 2YO he has trained. Just as importantly, rival trainer Bob Baffert said after Ready’s Image demolished a hot field in the Tremont: “He’s been the most impressive (2YO) I’ve seen in a Stakes race this year. We have to move way forward, Ready’s Image can stay where he is.”

In his fifth start at two, Ready’s Image ran second in the Group 1 Hopeful Stakes (1400m) at Saratoga, and in his first start at three, he won the Listed Adjudicating Stakes at Belmont (1250m, topweight).

Ready’s Image earned a 105 Beyer Speed Figure in the Sanford, a number equaled by his own sire, and bettered by just three 2YO colts in Saratoga history.

www.thethoroughbred.com.au

More Than Ready has proven a tremendous cross with mares by Danehill (remembering Danehill is closely related to Halo, grandsire of More Than Ready) or with Danehill blood (eg, Sebring, Benicio, Perfectly Ready and More Joyous), so expect Ready’s Image to do the same.

PEDIGREE NOTES The Halo-line is best represented by his grandson, the exciting More Than Ready (by Southern Halo) and sons of Sunday Silence (by Halo). Halo is very closely related to Northern Dancer (their dam’s are half-sisters) and Danehill, whose mares nick with More Than Ready.

Consider daughters of Street Cry, whose sire Machiavellian is from this famous family. More Than Ready’s 2009 Golden Slipper winner Phelan Ready is from a Blevic (Scenic/Sadler’s Wells) mare.

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THE THOROUGHBRED ADVERTISING PROMOTION

Roberto line IZMIR (b h 2004, Red Ransom (USA)–In The Past (GB), by Zafonic (USA)) 16.1hh which include the champion Australian sire Redoute’s Choice and his close relations Umatilla, Hurricane Sky, Xaar, Masterclass and El Gran Senor.

Of course, this year’s Group 1 Sires’ Produce Stakes winner Manhattan Rain, a half-brother to Redoute’s Choice, is another product of this wonderful family. And so is WA’s new sire Izmir, an impressive looking son of Red Ransom who will stand at Rivercrest Park Stud, WA. Izmir’s dam In The Past (by Zafonic) boasts Best In Show (Traffic Judge-Stolen Hour) as her third dam.

The unraced Imzir is a brother to the 2005 Group 2 Silver Slipper winner Domesday, who is standing at Darley Twin Hills, Cootamundra. Imzir is very much in the image of Red Ransom, who aged 21, is having another good season with his sons Onemorenomore (G1 Champagne Stakes) and Duporth (G1 BTC Cup), also heading for stud careers.

Fee: $1650 (inc. GST) Standing at: Rivercest Park, Myalup, WA Contact: Victoria Cayley (m) 0415 631 220

There are not too many better stallionproducing families, particularly in Australia, than the one founded by the dominant mare Best In Show.

Best In Show’s legacy will live on for a long time through the deeds of her descendants, especially the stallions,

Broodmare owners looking at Izmir should consider mares with Northern Dancer blood, particularly through Danehill and Last Tycoon (dam-sire of Onemorenomore and Red Ransom’s unbeaten fillyTyphoon Tracy), who have worked so very well with Red Ransom. This is a pedigree that also will match well with Mr. Prospector-line mares.

PEDIGREE NOTES Roberto over Northern Dancer works.

Take Roberto’s top US son Dynaformer – the sire of 21 Stakes winners from NDline mares and seven from mares from the Mr. Prospector-line, but significantly, all those seven Stakes winners have granddams by ND. Also, the Robertoline has an affinity with mares carrying the blood of the great mare Rough Shod, ancestress of Nureyev & Sadler’s Wells.

Blushing Groom line WAR PASS (USA) (b or br h 2005, Cherokee Run (USA)–Vue (USA), by Mr. Prospector (USA)) 16.0½hh

Fee: $22,000 (Inc. GST) Standing at: Widden Stud, Widden Valley, NSW Contact: Ryan McEvoy (02) 6549 9999, (m) 0439 802 837

If War Pass were an Australian racehorse, the announcement that he was standing his first season at the historic Widden Stud, in the Hunter Valley, would be lauded as if he was the new Vain.

War Pass is North America’s equivalent of Vain – the sensational

76 T H E T H O R O U G H B R E D | SUBSCRIBE NOW

2YO speedster of the 1970s who was to become a champion sire at Widden When trainer Nick Zito said of War Pass – “class, courage and the sort of speed I have never seen from another horse”, he wasn’t joking. War Pass’s rating (Beyer Speed Figure of 113) was unheard of when he blitzed his rivals to win the Group 1 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (1680m, Monmouth) by 4.5 lengths.

War Pass won five of his seven starts – he also won the G1 Champagne Stakes (1600m) and finished runner-up in the G1 Wood Memorial (1800m).

The speed is no fluke, he’s bred for it. War Pass’s sire Cherokee Run (by Runaway Groom), a Group 1 Breeders’ Cup Sprint (1200m) winner, has become a phenomenal source of speed, leaving two other champion juveniles, the filly Chiluki (from a Damascus mare) and the colt Yonaguska (from a Silver Ghost mare).

Of course, War Pass inherits a wonderful

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speed component from his dam-sire Mr. Prospector and through Bold Ruler, the sire of his second dam Bayou Blue.

War Pass is free of Northern Dancer blood, so he makes for an ideal outcross.

PEDIGREE NOTES The most influential son of Blushing Groom is Rahy – and 36 of Rahy’s 81 Stakes winners (eight of his 14 G1 winners) are from Northern Dancer-line mares. Another 15 Stakes-winners have ND as the sire of the granddam. The Blushing Groom-line also has mixed very well over mares inbred to ND (namely his granddam Almahmoud) and his family through stallions like Halo and Danehill.

The Damascus-line has nicked well with Cherokee Run. The best source is through Gilded Time and Salieri.

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THE OVERSEER

A position of privilege Henry Plumptre couldn’t say no when asked to run Darley’s racing and breeding business in Australia for Sheikh Mohammed.

WORDS STEPHEN HOWELL. PHOTO DAVID CALLOW

T

he Honourable Henry Plumptre is one of those men you would often see at the track, on raceday or at trackwork at dawn, and wonder what he did. Well, since last November it has all been clear – Plumptre runs Darley Australia (racing and breeding), reporting to John Ferguson, who is in charge of Darley worldwide for its owner, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, ruler of Dubai.

The Honourable was given him at birth because, as Plumptre explains, “My father was a lord, a hereditary peer, and all his sons are called Honourable. “Peter Moody calls me Dishonourable,” he adds, clearly enjoying the repartee he has with the Caulfield trainer who grew up in Charleville in Central Queensland and is as comfortable with his workingclass background as Plumptre is his bluebood upbringing on a farm in Kent, England, where he rode and “did a bit of (fox) hunting”.

Asked where he was in the Plumptre hierarchy, the second of

78 THE THOROUGHBRED

five brothers says with a chuckle, “If I was the oldest, I would not be talking to you,” and says of the prefi x, “It’s never really used … Australians are not overly interested in that sort of thing.

They’re more interested in the person and his capabilities.”

Plumptre’s job is the best in Australian racing and breeding.

He oversees more than 800 stallions, broodmares, racehorses and potential racehorses, worked by staff from managers to trainers to jockeys to track riders to stable and breeding hands in the biggest team, one that covers Darley’s original stock and that from the estimated $500m purchase of Bob Ingham’s Woodlands empire last year.

School trips as a teenager to stables at Lambourn around 1970 got Plumptre’s racing interest going. It was the era of Nijinsky, Mill Reef and Brigadier Gerard and, as he says, it was an amazing time to get interested in the sport. That interest did not turn into work in the industry until a bloodstock agent he met advised him to come to Australia, and in 1977 he met James Thompson

and began working at Widden (now run by James’ son Antony) in the Hunter Valley.

He was “bloody lucky” to be there when Widden stood Vain, Bletchingly and Lunchtime, and he suggested the stud was like Arrowfield (also in the Hunter) is now with its stallions Redoute’s Choice, Flying Spur and Hussonet. After a stint back in England working for the British Bloodstock Association at Newmarket, he began working for John Messara at Arrowfield.

Plumptre talks fondly of his time with Messara, a frenetic period when tax incentives encouraged borrowing to buy horses, but one that came to an end with losses that hit some key players, including the great trainer Bart Cummings.

Redundancy pushed Plumptre out on to his own as a bloodstock agent in 1990, but he fell on his feet, lucky to have Lloyd Williams as a client after having bought horses for him in England in the 1980s.

“In ’92 I bought 13 horses for him, paid about $360,000 for the whole lot, but Mahogany

TEAM DARLEY: Henry Plumptre (right), trainer Peter Snowden (left) and racing manager Trevor Lobb share a light moment with Craig Newitt before the jockey rode Aichi into third place in the Newmarket Handicap at Flemington in the autumn.

was one of them,” Plumptre says.

Mahogany (Br g 1990, Last Tycoon (IRE)-Alshandegha (USA), by Alydar (USA)) won the VRC and the AJC Derby, and two Lightning Stakes, all Group 1 races, and earned $3.6 million.Plumptre’s last important involvement with Williams was the sale of his colt Reset (B h 2000, Zabeel (NZ)Assertive Lass, by Zeditave) to Darley when he was working as a consultant for the stud – the price for the unbeaten three-yearold (five from five, including the Group 1 Australian Guineas) was reported to be about $20 million.

DARLEY BY THE NUMBERS “We have about 400 of everything,” says managing director Henry Plumptre about Darley Australia’s staff, racehorse and broodmare numbers. Add to the trio of 400s, 27 stallions on the stud’s official list for this spring that did not include Woodlands’ former champion racehorse but stud alsoran Octagonal, although he remains available on demand at Twin Hills, Cootamundra. The stallions and their fees (GST included) …

“Gradually as I got more involved with Darley it became a self-cancelling process,” says Plumptre of his own business, Eagle Bloodstock, that also had rewarding relationships with David Hayes when he trained in Hong Kong, and big owner Scott Perrin. As he says: “It paid a lot of school fees for me.”

Plumptre moved from a consultancy position with Darley to become stud director three years ago and last year took over as Australian managing director from Oliver Tait, who took charge of Darley in the US. Involved in Darley’s purchase of the Ingham breeding and racing empire, Plumptre didn’t take over the combined assets cold, knowing the key Ingham men who came with the purchase, manager Trevor Lobb, stud boss Peter Flynn

and trainer Peter Snowden. “Proof of the pudding will really be in five years’ time,” he says of the deal that added farms at Denman (the Ingham breeding farm that now boards only in-house mares) and Cootamundra (Twin Hills) to Darley’s Kelvinside (in the Hunter Valley, in NSW) and Northwood Park (near Nagambie, in Victoria). “(But) what we have bought is absolutely priceless intellectual property.”

He says the purchase has not been without its teething problems. “I make no bones about there being a few difficulties,” Plumptre says of the absorption that involves two work forces and two cultures.

His many years on stud farms and in horse dealing was preparation for his plum job. “I saw the best part of 4000 foals

born, the best part of 4000 yearlings reared and prepared for sale,” Plumptre explains.

Not that moving to Sydney from Melbourne, where, in his mid-50s, he was happy in a wide circle of family, friends and contacts, was easy. But to be asked by Darley was compelling.

“It would have been nonsensical to say no,” he says of the chance to work for a man such as Sheikh Mohammed.

As well-resourced as Darley is, in this ravaged economy Plumptre is accountable. “I think it is a question of us looking at what we do in that crisis context … how we can keep our client base in the next year or so, and keep them together and supporting us. You can’t afford the racing industry or yearling market to go bust.”

At Kelvinside Exceed And Excel and Street Cry (both $110,000), Commands ($55,000), Bernardini, Street Sense (both $38,500), Lonhro ($33,000), Authorized, Kheleyf, Nadeem, Shamardal (all $27,500), Teofilo ($22,000), Henny Hughes ($19,250), Canny Lad, Dubawi (both $16,500), Ad Valorem, Tiger Hill (both $11,000), Shaft ($7700).

At Northwood Park New Approach ($33,000), Reset ($27,500), Hard Spun ($22,000), Strategic, Street Boss (both $16,500), Any Given Saturday ($13,750), Gonski ($6600).

At Twin Hills Musket ($11,000), Quest For Fame ($6600), Domesday ($5500).

The bulk of the racehorses are trained by Peter Snowden at Warwick Farm and Flemington, with Lee Freedman having 15-20 at Markdel, on the Mornington Peninsula.

THE THOROUGHBRED 79

PASSION FOR

THE

JOB PHOTOS COURTESY OF SKY CHANNEL

The caller & his disciples Breaking bread with the old and the new among Australian racecallers is a delicious moment.

JOHN TAPP: in the broadcast box a decade ago, just before he gave up calling.

WORDS STEPHEN HOWELL

J

ohn Tapp has one of those voices: honey flows with the passion and accuracy that puts a racecaller at the top of his profession. Victorian caller Greg Miles has the same, smooth brilliance now; ‘Tappy’ – and he is Tappy, not John or JT – had it when he caught Sky Channel unawares and hung up his binoculars in September 1998.

Aged 67, he still has it in his In The Gig hosting role and his Inside Racing interviews with key industry figures past and present, although the occasional genuflexion has to be forgiven. But that’s John Tapp OAM, passionate and passionately supportive.

So it is fitting that, while media commitments now run a distant second to training a team of more than a dozen harness horses at Ebenezer, about 70km north-west of Sydney on the Hawkesbury River – this year Tappy had his first Group 1 winner (the 2YO Chariot King in the $100,000 Bathurst Gold Crown, 1730m, on March 28) – he puts his name and support to the John Tapp Race Calling Scholarship for young callers with Sky. Matt Hill, who took over as Sky’s No. 1 caller in Sydney when Ian Craig retired last month, was the first winner (2000). Then came Josh Fleming (2003) and now Mitch Manners (2008), emerging

80 THE THOROUGHBRED

talent in a small pool that needs regular topping-up to service the growing needs of radio, pay television and race clubs on the non-TAB circuit. The pressure on this rare breed was increased by the retirement of Craig after Bryan Martin called it quits in Melbourne in 2007.

Lunch with Tappy, a man who has spent much of his working life talking for a living, is a table laden with entertaining yarns, especially when Fleming and Manners are there and feeding off one of their role models.

The ‘disciples’ probably have heard Tappy’s three ingredients for successful calling many times over, but, clearly, they don’t believe you can have too much of a good thing.

“They applied 50 years ago, they apply now, and they’ll apply in 50 years,” Tappy says.

“Accuracy, colour and logic, and probably in that order, are the trifecta of key points. Accuracy is the first requirement; colour because you entertain, but that’s controlled, not rampant; and logic – don’t say silly things.”

This, inevitably, leads to a discussion on picking the winner in close photo finishes. “Don’t be a hero,” is the advice from Tappy, especially now the replay a few seconds later can give you a second look. “You’re on the odds to a flogging.” (Here, Miles getting Viewed right in

last year’s Melbourne Cup when most thought Bauer had won, is mentioned; as is Miles getting Theseo wrong when Niconero beat him in a near-identical finish to this year’s Australian Cup, also at Flemington.)

Tappy’s memory goes into

‘ Accuracy, colour and logic are the trifecta of key points.

JOHN TAPP

’

overdrive, and the names from 40 years ago are rattled off as if yesterday as he recalls Ken Howard (1913-76), perhaps Sydney’s most famous caller, and his need to name the winner no matter how close the finish. In 1968 on Epsom Handicap and AJC Derby day (the Derby was run in the spring then) Howard, working from a box about 80 yards short of the line, got his signature “You can bet London to a brick on” call of the winner wrong in both feature races when Wilton Park nosed out Royal Account in the Derby and Speed Of Sound beat the Victorian Joking in the Epsom.

Tappy says the mistakes were heard across Australia and cost Howard his spot on stations in Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania for three or four years

– they switched to Tapp, while NSW and Queensland stuck with Howard.

The calls were on a Saturday and, says Tappy, Howard stuck his neck out again on Metropolitan Handicap day on the Monday at Randwick. He put ‘London’ on Natal Lass over Gypsy’s Warning in the Gimcrack Stakes for 2YOs, and got it right. “He told me he had to do it. It was like falling off a horse – he had to get back on.”

Fleming (from Barcaldine, about 1200 kilometres north of Brisbane and famous for the ‘Tree of Knowledge’, where shearers met in 1891 and began the political movement that formed the Australian Labor Party) and Manners (from Brisbane) use the “better safe than sorry” approach that Tapp espouses.

Tapp is one of Australia’s best-known callers – Australia Post put him on a stamp – but perhaps his most celebrated media moment came in the 1990s when he interviewed Sydney trainer Jack Denham, infamous for having nothing to do with the press – before or since that interview.

Tappy says he was flabbergasted to get a call from his wife Ann saying he had to ring Jack Denham urgently and asked her if she had the right name. He rang the number she gave him and Denham said, gruffly, “I want you to interview me.”

PASSION FOR THE JOB

THE IMPORTANCE OF PLACING THE FAVOURITE Scholarship pair quickly learned that money talks, or that they have to talk about the horse the punters have latched on to.

The John Tapp Race Calling Scholarship winners Josh Fleming and Mitch Manners hang on every word from Tappy – after all, he has the stamp of authority – but, being Queenslanders, they also take advice from Brisbane caller Alan Thomas.

Fleming tells of taking a tape of a race call to Thomas, a hard marker. The young man suggested his effort was worth 8-10.

“Know what I’d give you?”

Fleming says of Thomas’s comment.

“Two. You didn’t

mention the favourite first.”

Here Manners jumps in with the reason for the downgrade: “A.T. says up to 75 per cent of the pool is on the favourite (with multiples), so you’ve got to give punters an idea (how it’s going) early on.”

Thomas clearly was influenced by one of the greats, Bill Collins, who invariably would put the favourite into the picture very early in the call – particularly when calling harness races.

Denham had agreed to speak to promote a medical charity, and when Channel 9 offered to donate $10,000 to make it a television event the trainer agreed to that, too.

Tappy recalls that he and a film crew went to Ricochet Lodge, Denham’s Rosehill stables, where they had to get past the watch “dog”, a wild goose called Charlie, and that Denham went to get horses to hold for part of the interview. “He came back with a handy couple, Filante and Might And Power.”

Might And Power (B or br g 1993, Zabeel (NZ)-Benediction (Ire), by Day Is Done (Ire)) won the Melbourne Cup, the Caulfield Cup, the Cox Plate and four other Group 1s; Filante (Ch h 1992, Star Way (GB)-Eau D’Etoile (NZ),

by Sir Tristram (Ire)) won two Group 1s, the Epsom Handicap and the Yalumba Stakes, and was second in two Cox Plates.

After the stable interview, Denham added: “Right, we’ll go

home (to another Sydney suburb, Strathfield). Joycey’s putting some lunch on.”

Tappy says the spread was sumptuous and, on thanking Denham for what his wife had prepared, was told: “Eat up and enjoy it. It’ll be the last you’ll get.”

The final part of the interview was filmed at the charity function, and Tappy recalls that Denham was more nervous than reluctant, unlike the one other time he got the old trainer on air.

This was late in 1998 when Might And Power won the Group 2 Chelmsford Stakes at Randwick, just after Tapp had quit the caller’s box in the grandstand and was working “down below” doing interviews at the races for Sky Channel.

Tappy had to drag Denham to the camera and, begrudgingly, he spoke. Racegoers who watched the interview applauded. “Jack wanted to know why they were clapping – I told him it was for him.”

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