You know the colours pretty well by now – green, white brace, yellow hooped sleeves and cap.
Trotted up on the unbeaten Chain Of Lightning at Caulfield Saturday, Stuart Ramsey's colours, there's a story in them.
Well, there's a story with just about everything Stu Ramsey does and says in racing. If you are on this side of the fence you probably barely know him, but I guarantee you'd love too.
If you are on the other side, well let's say Stuart Ramsey, 70 in December, is a larger-than life character and he's been fairly large too, but some health battles and bicycle fitness have trimmed him up but not slowed him down.
And the trademark braces keep the strides up and the wise cracking flows as easily with them.
When Ramsey was watching the exciting horse he bred, Chain Of Lightning scoot home at Caulfield to make it five straight, he was as concerned for another home-bred, Hype Wire, keeping its form intact also, running last in a maiden at Beetoota for Jundah based Darrel Dolgner.
That's seven starts, no placings, four lasts. There's a story in Ramsey and Dolgner too, a beauty, involves a Queen's pardon.
Stay tuned.
Ramsey has just finished stallion parade week in the Hunter Valley, where his family's Turangga Farm is based.
"I knocked up, pulled out of Coolmore. I didn't need the nourishment or the punishment,"
Ramsey said, giving you a hint of his matter-of-fact approach to life.
It sounds as though you could be talking to his main trainer Peter Moody when speaking to Ramsey.
"I remember he rang up one day and he started with ‘now I don't want to have an argument', so I hung up on him," said Moody.
"He rang back and asked me why I hung, up, so I said, "we were going to have an argument', so that was sorted pretty quickly," Moody added.
"He has what he calls the golden rule, those who have the gold, make the rules, he's very opinionated but very straight forward with it."
Stuart Ramsey at Turangga Farm
Moody can't recall their first meeting, Ramsey has an elephant's mind for a memory, can reel off dates, times, places, even the weather.
"It was at the Doncaster Hotel on Anzac Parade near Randwick. A mutual friend, Jim Fitzgerald, introduced me to Moods," Ramsey said.
"Jim was a purser on the boats, and he was the shipping rep for my meat exports, and we just struck it up good.
"I said when Moody went to Queensland on his own (with Bill Mitchell) I'd send him a horse and we have been together ever since. Never had a blue, we both talk the same language."
The partnership has been successful, Group 1 winners like Ancient Song, Sky Cuddle and Cinque Cento, a stream of performers like Niagara Falls, Our Quivira and now the emergence of Chain of Lightning is testament to Ramsey's man of his word approach.
And it's also why Dolgner, who tapped him on the shoulder on the pub in Jundah, in the Barcoo Shire, population 350, back in October 2014 (see he remembers the date) after he bought the Flodden Hills property, trains horses for him.
"What have you got out there Stu," I asked of Flodden, named after the battle between the English and the Scots in the early 1500s – "Kangaroos".
"This bloke came up and said he was a horse trainer," said Ramsey referring to Dolgner, who is now near on 80, and is the only trainer at the Jundah track.
"He must have known I had horses and I said I'd get him one. He came back an hour later and said: ‘you know I got life once'," said Ramsey.
"I don't know what for, I didn't ask, but he told me he got a Queen's pardon to get off. He actually wrote to the Queen and got a pardon, I don't know how that works, but he's got a licence and I've had a horse with him ever since," Ramsey said.
"We did a deal on prizemoney, but there isn't much, but no bills. All he wants is a quiet horse, no track rider out there, he trains them out of his car out the window. He rang me this morning asking if he can send the truck to Moody's to get that horse (Chain Of Lightning).
Chain Of Lightning storms to the front in the Cockram Stakes. Picture: Vince Caligiuri – Getty Images
"No, he does a job for me, drives you mad, but has a good heart and it keeps him going, he checks the water on the property and has a bit of fun."
Dolgner's last winner was one of Ramsey's – Mistress Of Money – its only career win from 31 starts – at Muttaburra in August last year.
But there's a better story with Dolgner and Ramsey.
OK, so they do run the Stuart Ramsey Benchmark 50 at Jundah's once a year meeting (coming up October 2), but let's go back to the 2020 year.
"They rang up and said they had this Smart Missile (Nazario) who can gallop and was set for the maiden. I said: ‘how'd you work that out?' and they reckon they'd been working it up the airstrip, but they didn't have the papers," Ramsey said.
"The trackwork rider used to work for a top Sydney stable, ended up in jail for drink driving, but I found the papers, they were with (Raheen Stud's) Basil Nolen, he reckoned the horse was gone in the wind."
"Anyway, I sent the papers out, they put the horse in Dolgner's name, the track rider had $1000 on it, came from last and pissed in. He took the horse home 90km and then drove back for the party."
Ramsey is a cattle man first, well a Casino (northern NSW that is, not card tables and flashing machines) man, where he started at Elders Pastoral in the early 70s, then via Yass, via West Wyalong, became an auctioneer, took over an abattoir in Casino in 1985, absorbed another in Grafton, and then of course why not – horse racing and breeding.
So he bought Turangga (Indonesian for horse), from the Redmond family, and had stood, Taj Rossi, Elounda Bay and Twig Moss, before starting his boutique operation, which is now downsized and more focused on quality young horses than stallions, though Better Land, Trusting and Money Or The Gun have been home based domestics rather than commercial sires.
Stuart Ramsey after his horse Cinque Centro won Doomben Cup.
Hong Kong champion Able Friend would be the obvious headliner to come from the farm, or a Magic Millions winner in Kurata Queen, or Champagne Cuddles, or Glenall or even a $1.6m Sepoy colt sold to James Harron that raced briefly as War Hero and is now retired back to the farm but he is never one to reflect.
If you have been to an Inglis Easter Yearling Sale, your first stop is always the Turangga Farm hospitality tent, more popular than a Flower Drum for dinner and the menu less complicated and much better priced. You can get you steak done three ways, all succulently served with a braced Ramsey ready for a story and a natter.
Oh, and those braces, so back to the colours.
"Yes, there is a story in them, it was 1982 when I was getting into races and needed a set of colours so I rang them (whatever the equivalent of Racing Australia as the principal authority was back then), and they said you can have those," Ramsey said.
So, he got the Australian colours and the white braces "because my mum always wanted me to wear the braces," he said.
Oh, did we mention much of his latest star, Chain Of Lightning?
Chain Of Lightning is unbeaten in five starts. Picture: Reg Ryan – Racing Photos
"I bred the dad (Fighting Sun) and the mum, there's another story," he said.
There always is with Stu, the Reader's Digest version here, is that Magic Art, out of the useful performer Mardi's Magic, produced a $70,000 yearling for James Harron to race and win for Tony McEvoy as Magic Mischief.
"We trialed this girl at Muswellbrook, and she got beaten a long way. I sent her to Stirling Oswald, he worked for me when he left school, I've known his father and his grandfather, he's a good kid and said this girl might make a Kosciuszko horse," Ramsey said.
"So, he took it to Inverell, and it pissed in, and I thought we better get this to Moods, it's a VOBIS horse, but he talked me into running it again at Armidale and it won again, so the pressure was on Moods".
"She has been no surprise to us, she might have been to others, but her pedigree is beautifully balanced, and I've got a Magna Grecia I'm selling in the autumn which is perfect."
And with it comes a late message from Stewie about a mate – beautifully named Dude Kidd (James but no-one calls him that), son of one Sandy Kidd, reinforcing that Nazario story and checking in on Ramsey after a successful weekend.
These stories could go on forever.
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