Brent Thomson is 66, so is well qualified for retirement, but he did that back at the turn of the millennium.
Yet the dual (Australia and New Zealand) Hall of Fame jockey remains universally known by his very suitable moniker – “The Babe.”
He still looks it, now lives it. Again. Reborn.
Respected, refined, always resplendent. Now you can add, reinvented.
So, while fans are out there inhaling a free bacon and egg roll swished down with an instant coffee at The Valley’s showcase Breakfast With The Best morning on Tuesday, keep an eye out for The Babe, fittingly amongst the game’s biggest equine and human stars on the eve of the Ladbroke’s Cox Plate, Australia’s best race.
And not socially, not for the media, not for any token. He’ll be riding one or two in the gallops. After almost a quarter of a century away from the saddle and half a century since his Cox Plate story began.
It’s one of the spring’s best stories about a much loved, dare I say “legendary” star.
Think of this, he won four of them, Cox Plates - at his first four rides, and before he was 22. That’s four Cox Plates, four different horses, only Hugh Bowman has ridden as many and of course they were all on Winx.
(Sure, Darby Munro has five - but achieved from 1933 to 1952, Jack Purtell has four (1950 to 1956) with Bowman and Glen Boss (2005-2020). But none had four before they were 22.)
Thomson started with Fury's Order when he was a 17-year-old apprentice, Family Of Man two years later into So Called (who beat Family Of Man) and the definitive performance of Dulcify in 1979.
“I guess that will be unlikely to ever be done again,” says The Babe, no hint of boast or brashness, just as humble as always.
And nor will what Thomson will do on Tuesday morning, some 24 years since he retired, after a global career that ended in Macau in 2000, after traversing 24 countries for 2500 winners, 54 at Group 1 level.
He’s been back in a saddle since February and will don Ciaron Maher’s silks to partner a couple of his Cox Plate weekend runners in their final gallops. At 66!
“If you had asked me 10 years ago whether I’d get back on a horse, the answer would have been - unlikely,” said Thomson.
“I gave it away in Macau in 2000, that was my last port of call. I wasn’t enjoying where I was living, there were no bells and whistles, no media, no newspapers reporting on it, no fuss. I thought coming back to Australia after such a long time, it was going to be very difficult to kick start again, pretty much impossible.
“There was no Plan B.”
Thankfully Sir Peter Vela and the team at New Zealand Bloodstock supported the Whanganui Whiz Kid (before the name change) with a stipend as a company rep, but this was a long way from the jet-setting lifestyle of private jets, Saville Row suits, $500 Panama hats, hand crafted Italian "tippies", he'd call them, (that's shoes - probably Bally), when it was said The Babe wouldn’t be happy unless he was paying 10 pounds for a piece of toast (naturally buttered by Geeves.)
“This was completely out of the blue,” Thomsen says of the surprise return to the saddle.
This is not a mid-life crisis or burning final wish. Yet it’s blazingly personal, obviously admirable, and as much quite remarkable.
The Babe tells it like this:
“I think I mainly attribute it to the fact I gave up drinking at the end of 2022,” he said.
And while - there but for the grace of whatever you believe in - go all of us, Thomson was always cheeringly favourable to a glass of red cordial, there was no lightbulb moment to shove that away, and just as always, no loudspeaker announcement, and there is 00 beers and zero alcohol wines to fill a hand if desired.
“It’s the best decision I ever made. I suppose in some ways it was like reinventing yourself,” he said.
“Not many people had as much fun as I did on the cocktails, the places in the world I lived and the people that I moved with and associated with.
“But as in everything it comes to an end. It was a fork in the road decision that had to be made, no-one was holding a gun at my head, but from my health and my work, point of view, it has ended up being very good and why I am here today.
“I guess it changes your whole perception to life in general. Without giving away the drinking it wouldn’t have led me to doing this, yet it’s amazing how one thing led to another.”
Which started with a close friend prompting him to talk to Maher’s right hand man Jack Turnbull with “I wouldn’t mind coming down and getting on one.”
“So, I did, my first ride was on a lovely grey horse called Skiing, a delightful animal to ride, that was February and I’ve been working between Fingal and Cranbourne ever since,” said Thomson.
“One thing I remember is that you forget how high up you are, but thankfully he was like a rocking horse.
“It’s wonderful after so many years to think you can still do it. It’s amazing the attention that it has bought, not that I dreamed it would be that way, or that I set out for, it’s just something that just happened.”
“But I didn’t start it to do it as a whim, if I start something I like to go through with it and in this case, it was and here I am today.”
Turnbull feels as though he has trained the Maher horses as much as Thomson for Tuesday and beyond.
Thomson has added to his equine regime with multiple weekly visits to Keiser strength training clinics in the city to build his core condition and a chance to what he says “I might relive Dulcify taking off on me here” in the famous Cox Plate where Bill Collins call remains immortal – “Brent Thomson going for his fourth Cox Plate, and he’s got it…Dulcify’s won by a minute and that’s the way he might win the Melbourne Cup.”
“In a way this is like turning a full circle, like giving something back to Moonee Valley
“To think my career started here when I was 17, it took off by coming over and winning a race I didn’t realise how significant it would be in my career, and then to win four before I was 22,” he said.
“It’s a great race to be a part of.”
PS: Obviously Dulcify didn’t win that Melbourne Cup, a tragic injury ended his career and life and still sits uncomfortably with Thomson.
“Dulcify was different class, clearly the best horse I ever rode, only the best horses win the Cox Plate, there are very few upsets.
“But I think racing was robbed by the loss of Dulcify, Kingston Town was a year later and of course that was the start of his three in succession, imagine of we had Dulcify v The King, what an amazing race to think about.
“There wouldn’t be a spare seat in the grandstand.”
There never are these Cox Plate days and that’s where The Babe will be Saturday.
“It would be wonderful to do it all again, but age and gravity is against me, I might jump one out one day, but this will do me for now.”
This running of the Ladbrokes Cox Plate will be the 50th since The Babe won his first, in the wet, on Fury’s Order.
Time Capsule Perspective 1975: Australia was in the middle of the Constitutional Crisis that led to Governor General Sir John Kerr putting elected Prime Minister Gough Whitlam into the draft.
The movie Picnic At Hanging Rock was released, Graham Kennedy’s fabled “Crow” call was first heard, Ernie Sigley and Denise Drysdale won shared Gold Logies, North Melbourne won the flag under Ron Barassi, the year Sam Kerkovich missed the team photo when perhaps confused with priorities.
And Think Big won his second Melbourne Cup, the fifth of Bart’s eventual dozen.
It’s fair to say The Babe has aged at least as well, if not better.
Legendary!
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