You know you are watching Group 1 racing anywhere in the world when you see the Godolphin blue salute at the highest level. Of course, it happened twice at Caulfield on Saturday with Anamoe and Golden Mile.
And while Godolphin's James Cummings seemed to be channelling Barry Humphries true-blue Aussie character Barry McKenzie at The Heath with "that hat" (and perhaps appropriately noting, the character was played by Barry Crocker – so it's OK to invoke the rhyming slang analogy here), you know you are truly watching Group 1 racing in the land down under when Tuvalu arrives on the same card.
OK, Godolphin can pull a tenuous string here too. Tuvalu, named after the world's fourth smallest country, an archipelago of six coral atolls in the Pacific, is a $200,000 son of Godolphin's sire Kermadec, which is where the name comes from, Tuvalu being not far from the Kermadec Islands which sit in the South Pacific.
But Tuvalu – the horse – shows the true egalitarianism of our game. Anyone can play – and on the right day with the right horse in the right race, such a story can be told. And it is some.
Where else could a horse carry the colours of the Romani Gypsies, with a part-owner – "playing the last hole of life" – having been driven from Queensland to Caulfield because he was too ill to fly, ridden by a jockey who breeds greyhounds, trained by an old school horseman who was once linked to one of the most legendary betting plunges in Australian racing, though he barely knew it, as much as introducing heavy sand training to the game, if only a little by accident.
That's just part of the Tuvalu story, let's unpack it a little more.
Tuvalu was too good for his rivals in the Toorak Handicap. Picture: Reg Ryan – Racing Photos
Managing owner Chris "Wellsy" Wells, had a great, great grandmother called Priscilla, a gypsy going back to England at the time of the "New Forest", she matriarch at Shave Green where they eeked a living by gathering and selling flowers, before they were released from their wandering ways from the "compounds".
If you have seen Guy Ritchie's "Snatch" you know the modern English Gyspy, if you've been outside Royal Ascot, you know the incessant urging "darling" into buying the daily flower from a gypsy.
Romany Gypsies of Europe - They eked a living on their wanderings by gathering and selling flowers, manufacturing beesoms, bee skeps and chair bottom caneing.
"My father tried to hide the fact, and I'm out there racing in the colours," Wells said.
"They are the flag of the Romani Gypsies, but I wasn't really trying anything more than finding a set of colours that were easy to see. They look a little like the Indian cricket team, but yes that's the Gypsy flag," he said.
Peter McCallum, no relation the world leading Cancer centre in Melbourne, is the Queensland based part-owner of Tuvalu, who made the emotional trip to Caulfield Saturday, suspecting his visit to trainer Lindsey Smith's stables at Warrnambool this week will be a final farewell before returning home.
"He was in tears, said it was the best day of his life" Wells said.
"It was very emotional, I gave him the trophy, he couldn't believe it, he said he'd sleep with it."
Jockey Jarrod Fry had ridden in only one Group 1 race before linking with Tuvalu's third in the Sir Rupert Clarke Stakes before Saturday. Yet he followed Jamie Mott this spring, on entry to the Group 1 jockey's club via the Toorak Handicap – but he comes a long way from Toorak.
Fry, with no family history in racing other than an uncle who would marry a trainer, harboured ambitions to be a jockey. He had never ridden a horse, let alone put a halter on one, left school in year 10 and found a willing and strict tutor in the emerging trainer Darren Weir, who becomes much of a conduit across the Tuvalu story.
At the same time a "small" Fry was in the catching pen at the Melbourne greyhounds, nabbing Jason Thompson dogs (Jason is the father of Queensland-based jockey Ben), getting $5 and an occasional sling, that would eventually spawn a sidetrack career as a jockey to successful breeder and owner.
Jarrod Fry joined the Group 1 winners list last Saturday. Picture: Reg Ryan – Racing Photos
So, if you see a ‘Rico' something racing at the dogs, that's Fry, in as much the same way as the ubiquitous "Bale" dogs. Rico Bale was his first dog, he bought that from the Bale man himself, Paul Wheeler and now there is a dog farm and property at Haddon near Ballarat, and a very busy wife Ashleigh, practicing lawyer, and equestrian junkie and squeezing as much out of every day before she produces her own litter.
And then to the trainer, the ‘giddy-up' man, the laconic Lindsey Smith, who now acknowledges his time – even without knowing it at the time – with legendary Queensland trainer Henry Davis is the key to his success and knowledge as a horseman today.
Sure, there had been a jockey's apprenticeship in Western Australia with Colin France at Rockingham in Perth but as Smith admits "I lacked a certain bit of ability at the caper. I was awful at it, but it got me to the next stage."
The real apprenticeship came with Davis, and he took the role from John Size, now a king in Hong Kong.
"I think Henry taught me everything without me even knowing it. I was like a sponge in my time there, he was anal, he was a one percenter, he has shaped me into how I do things today," Smith said.
"He was hard on horses but there was little or no attrition. He got them fit and that's what eventually happened when I found the heavy sand."
But back to Davis and the famous bookmaker Mark Read inspired plunge on Getting Closer at Canterbury on January 9, 1982.
"He even tricked us," said Smith to no surprise to anyone who knew Davis.
"I thought the horse was in the paddock, then got a knock on the door and said (stable name) "Brownie" was running in Sydney and I should listen to the radio, it wasn't on TV back then."
And of course, it won, a folklore plonk, as much as 100-1 into 7-2 and while the story was good then, it may have had some embellishment in print since, but not for Smith.
Trainer Lindsey Smith (right) with jockey, Jarrod Fry, after Tuvalu won the Toorak Handicap. Picture: Reg Ryan – Racing Photos
"(Owner) Mark Read more than looked after me. I got the odds to $3000 without even knowing it and they wanted no-one to know anything," Smith said.
"It wouldn't happen today, but I learned so much from Henry perhaps without even really knowing it at the time, and to think I got the job that one of the world's best trainers had (John Size), is quite remarkable."
What is just as remarkable is how Smith developed his training methods on the use of heavy sand, that became the domain of Weir's rise to prominence and is commonplace today with specially built like gallops at the new Cranbourne complex and elsewhere.
"It was pure accident," says Smith today who was training of Kwinana between Fremantle and Rockingham and close to the beach.
"I didn't have a float, couldn't afford one, just got my horses fit on the beach and then all things collided. I had a beautiful wife (Rebecca, the mother of their five children) and I was fat. I went to the gym and started learning about aerobic and anaerobic fitness, carbohydrates and burning energy and used that on my horses," Smith said.
"I also read a book by (athletics coach) Percy Cerutty (credited with training world champion runner Herb Elliott using a beach and sand regime), the difference is he had one horse, but the principle of being fitter than anyone else is the same. I just worked on getting my horses fitter than the next bloke.
"There is no coincidence, when a horse is galloping on a track, the heart rate is around 80, working on the sand it's around 120 but can go higher. It's like bench pressing more than the bloke next to you at the gym."
The next sign was a gallop on the hills of the Smith property. Three trees, spaced up the hill, were the measuring markers. If they only made it to the first tree, they were no good, if they made it to the third, well a Group 1 was waiting.
And they did, Old Cobber got them rolling and who would lead leviathan owner Bob Peters to give him the likes of Old Money and Old Comrade, while Plastered and Black Heart Bart and Scales Of Justice (also in the Romani Gypsy colours) were Group 1 pre-cursors to Tuvalu.
Smith still runs his stables in Perth, as well as his growing Warrnambool base, taking on the Peters top-level army for hometown glory, but is as proud that two of his former lieutenants, Adam Durrant and Grant Williams, are now leading trainers (and rivals) in the West.
And Fry fits the Smith mould of hard work and dedication without the fanfare and Wells and fellow owners have steadfastly stuck with him on the Tuvalu ride.
"I was riding one for Pat McKenna one day at the Bool," Fry recalled. "It had 20 starts and had never won, they were walking, I just used my initiative, and took off and won. Lindsey came up afterwards and said that was a really good ride and the next week I was riding for him," Fry said.
That he is riding as all is just another part to the story. Fry knew he wanted to be a jockey but had no idea how to get there. An arranged meeting with Weir, whilst at year 10 in high school changed that.
"As soon as the school holidays started, I was there. On the first day they asked me to go and get a horse and put the halter on it, I had no idea what they were talking about," Fry said.
"But Weiry taught me everything from riding the ponies, to a few quiet ones in trackwork to over 200 trials before I signed up as an apprentice."
"But the most important thing was he taught me the work ethic that he had. He taught me to go anywhere, never knock back a ride, and it has put me in good stead through my career," Fry said.
Jarrod Fry says Darren Weir taught him his hard work ethic. Picture: Scott Barbour – Racing Photos
The greyhounds had come before the horses, until his apprenticeship started. Now it is more than a side business, but a lucrative albeit time intensive exercise.
From catching them for a fiver, Fry and his wife's purpose-built property, strategically placed on the road to The Bool, run four brood bitches with 10 "long pup runs".
"We've got about a dozen dogs there, some ready for the adoption program and about another 10 to 12 in racing kennels.
"We only have one litter a year, my wife (Ashleigh) is busy enough, but it's a good setup," said Fry.
"When I got started, I approached Paul Wheelan, the Bale man, and asked if he had any bitches for sale. I got Rico Bale and from that little we earned about $250,000, we paid someone else to rear them, but now we do it all ourselves."
"The wife has the same work ethic as me, we are that busy it's hard to enjoy it all, but we made sure we had a nice family dinner Saturday night, but I had to ride Sunday."
As Lindsey Smith might say – "Giddy-Up!"
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