Ok, so there is an almost obligatory cute taxi analogy in Australia’s latest Royal Ascot champion Asfoora.
Then perhaps the Asfoora story is more communal Uber!
But it is all so richly and typically Australian, just like the other five Royal Ascot Day one winners before her.
There is the incredibly humble and now a little bit better-known breeder and owner Akram El-Fahri – and no he isn’t a Sheik though sounding like he should be - he’s a second-generation self-made hard-working immigrant from Lebanon who happens to like horses, even when their economics are a little flimsy.
Sure, Akram has a few Northcote taxis, well a fleet of them if you like, perhaps you’ve been in a “Platinum” vehicle.
I’m not sure the 1957 foal, who had only been out of Australia once since then, got a London Cab to Ascot, but to see him and family enjoying the labours of a racing life of passion along with the expense of fulfilling a Royal Ascot odyssey took some arm twisting.
So yes, it is easy to drop in Queanbeyan “taxi driver” Joe Janiak* to the mix but it doesn’t really help either of their rich stories as El-Fahri (nor Hungarian immigrant Janiak) nor former Xavier College graduate turned trainer Henry Dwyer, who joined him as the sixth Aussie to train the winner of the King’s Stand now King Charles III Stakes.
There is Akram (and his 93-year-old mother), and Henry, Chenelle and Shiny, of course Oisin Murphy, Mitch Aitken back home, extended family, friends and endless real believing cheerleaders as well as now converted doubters. We will get to them.
Perhaps even those at King Island with the hope that the Dwyer inspired Miners Rest Cup (named after the racing local outside of Ballarat) can defend their seemingly indefensible survival battles, and yes of course it’s a long way from there to Berkshire but Dwyer has been part of being on both maps.
Just as it has been for Australia’s latest regal racing queen Asfoora, proudly bred by Akram but unwanted at auction, unheralded on debut at Colac, now known globally and especially by King Charles. It is some yarn.
Yes, traditional racing media and social shares richly captured so much of Asfoora’s incredible achievement, a glimpse on mainstream breakfast television helped, rollicking radio interviews from the back of taxis and London pubs gave us a real feel for what it meant to Dwyer, his team and the typical Aussie fan squads on their royal pilgrimage.
But then of course racing doesn’t have a national message, let alone a universal service, though we are not rare on the international stage for its best stories, you know Black Caviar (sure that’s end of the Royal week) here, and Asfoora’s predecessors like Takeover Target, Miss Andretti, Scenic Blast, Nature Strip and of course the trail blazing Choisir two decades and an old grandstand ago now.
So, let’s try and snapshot what has happened. And how El-Fahri and Dwyer got to meet The King and take his trophy (for a while at least).
Akram, with his luxurious grey locks, can thank his father Joseph and uncle Shafiq for breeding some subliminal interest in the racing game that saw him so strangely at Royal Ascot Tuesday.
The old family farms in Lebanon had apples orchards and donkeys or mules, half horse and donkey but to escape poverty and hunger, they settled in Melbourne in its 1956 Olympic year, Akram born a year later.
Decades of hard work and successful business and property investments later, what do you do – start a stud farm with your brother (Daniel) of course and call it after your mother, hence Noor Elaine, on former cattle grazing land on Moglonemby Road at Euroa.
Not that either could “put a bridle on” or do mating’s, this was just the passion. Not that they had a hot commercial stallion to stand. Oamaru Force was their first, more Aldi different than Coles and Woolworths. Then comes Ilovethiscity whose only similarity to one like I Am Invincible is the first letter of their name.
But Asfoora’s mum, aptly named Golden Child, is by I Am Invincible AKA Vinnie, but none of that mattered at the time when she foaled a Flying Artie filly on August 15, 2018. Nor did it when she was prepared for sale and ended up in Magic Millions Adelaide sale as lot 487 (see below).
Noor Elaine took a dozen that year, sold 11, proven traders and keen to meet the market, but Akram wanted $30,000 for his filly to cover the service fee to the then Newgate based stallion and passed her in on a supposed $24,000 bid.
Dwyer was friends with Akram’s family and came to select a horse out of the Noor Elaine paddocks for them, and even then, ignored the filly in preference for another before his arm was twisted to take her back to Ballarat.
That’s Henry, who had a TAB phone account when he was eight, he too inspired by a father, of course a sensible chartered accountant whose release from figures was the form guide and “wireless” at their Glen Iris family home on a Saturday.
Henry followed his father’s path down the money path but the lure of the horses and a part-time job back in the old Aquanita stables then at Flemington, and a course at Marcus Oldham College in Geelong to learn how to really handle horses, provided the dilemma.
A firstly ignored text from Lloyd Williams to come see him at Macedon Lodge - because he thought it was a hoax - opened doors that saw Dwyer learning from John Oxx in Ireland and Criquette Head in France before coming back to stables at Caulfield, fully expecting to be broke by the time he was 30.
And there he is being hustled pre-race to be introduced to King Charles and in a typically Aussie way suggested “give us a spell”, he was running a little late saddling (he was fined 250 pounds when his pony rider was found without a vest) and that he’d prefer to be talking after the race, which he did of course.
But as always, it’s “team” and that vision of strapper Chenelle Ellis, was something special. Chenelle left two dogs, a cat and a partner at home, to be alongside the “quirky” Asfoora for the past two months and may never get home soon, with now an American stop in November under consideration after two more English summer starts.
And Shiny (or real name Shinya Mori) flanking Asfoora and Chenelle on her other side, from Ballarat’s Rising Sun Syndicate, but abroad the trip and team as the track rider for Asfoora.
Race rider was Irish champion and current leading jockey at the Royal meet Oisin Murphy, who has spent times in Australia, at the top winning titles in Britain and times at the bottom banned for drug and alcohol offences.
He replaced Mitch Aitken who had been aboard in five of Asfoora’s eight previous victories, but had to set an alarm 17,000km away on Wednesday morning to watch Murphy, if only for the last 400m, but was “really proud of her” and still felt part of the team.
It’s some journey from that Colac maiden for Liam Riordan, in December 2021, she hit the ground running winning six of her first eight, Jye McNeil and John Allen, sharing Group 2 and Group 3 wins before Murphy and Asfoora landed a Group I on the royal stage.
Then there was Dwyer’s “personal” cheer squad of about 40 or 50 mates, who allegedly went the early crow and swamped him when Asfoora emerged for victory around the 300m, and it was only later on finding a replay that Dwyer was able to see what actually happened.
That it did, silenced his own doubt – he’d hoped to run top ten not to embarrass himself – and many who questioned why a second-tier Aussie sprinter should carry the burden of expense and possible ridicule across the world.
She was coronated regally on Tuesday.
*PS – much is made of Joe Janiak and taxi driving. But Joe was talented classical pianist at school where he learned French and Latin.
It was when his wife Gail left him in 1992, that Joe worked three jobs, in a laundromat, a bakery and training horses while living in a caravan (for 15 years) he’d bought for $3500, that the taxi driving link bobs up. Working the nightshift in the bakery in the cold of Fyshwick, he had a fall injuring a knee elbow and ribs. He eventually needed a new kneecap, and doctors told him to find a new job that was “less demanding” and warmer. That was when he started driving the taxi.
Comments