I’ve always been part of the “there is never a last race” team, so none of the “get out stakes” stuff, the wheels of racing continually keep turning with barely a pit stop.
The wide windscreen ahead is always better looking forward to the future than that side reverse mirror and that rapidly disappearing view of the past.
But then there is always a January 1, resolutions if you must, but today (when this was originally published) a chance to revisit some story telling of the year just gone.
I’ve even been to the dogs and found the pizza maker Jihat Talgi winning the world’s richest greyhound race, The Phoenix with a dog named after a horse - Schillaci, to Melton and anointing Captain Ravishing as the most exciting equine athlete I’d seen in recent times, only to be brought back to earth but go to Menangle and share Encipher’s Eureka moment for the trots.
But it was always about the story, the people, the players. My first boss Jim Anderson said at the Courier Mail one day delegating the main story of the day to a junior me (probably after a long day building relationships at the Brekkie Creek): "well, there has got to be a yarn in one of them."
As Les Carlyon wrote: "if racing were just an industry it would be on the financial pages, it would have the warmth of merchant banking and the literary traditions of insurance. All that can make racing beautiful, all that elevates it above dull commerce, it the horse and the people."
And their stories - So here are some of them by month (originally published via Racenet), not always about the biggest names but hopefully with the most robust of stories to tell and share.
One of them even won an award!
Where the car parkers are wearing thongs, ushering you to a designated spot on the neighbouring cricket oval while drinking Great Northern before the first, you know this is going to be a good year.
Where $500,000 yearlings, produce tears for second hand trainer Anthony Cosgriff’s family memorializing son Rohan’s tragic passing with Bulgaria wearing his beloves Wolverhampton Wolves colours on a $6000 online buy. Priceless though.
Patrick Kearney won that Cup with a $7500 online buy Ashy Boy and remains a trainer to watch as he develops. He’s back to try and win it again today with Jackand, an $8500 Inglis Digital buy before racing, and they are already well in front - (it ran third).
Mind you Onepointsevengone runs in the last today. The name comes from that it cost $1.7m (was an I Am Invincible out of Group I performer Oakleigh Girl) as a yearling to Lloyd Kennewell and partners and has since been sold four times online, latest for $4750 and has already won that back with two placings for Melody Cunningham who presents it today. (It ran seventh.)
Of course, this was the month, the industry was rocked by the tragic loss of the ever popular and universally respected Deane Lester, a man of hard-earned integrity and who did so much more than tip winners. He was a voice of reason, common sense and comfort. And proof since that why others fill his chair or microphone, the real Deano has been irreplaceable.
I have included Robbie Laing as the story here though, Robbie may be slightly humbled to get that nod, given his close relationship with Lester but his story is typically Robbie, and almost (sadly) typical of some racing redemption.
Robbie has seen more gullies and troughs than sired children, he has nine. As good a producer, he’s a bad accountant, but a much better horseman and thankfully back at it.
"I've got four in work and live in a side room at mum and dad's place," said the notoriously hard to track down Laing, now 64 after training a benchmark 58 at Moe.
That was Tasuma, there were another seven for the year, and he starts this year with El Soledado in the last at Flemington (it ran third) - a $12 chance, Box Vale at Mornington (it ran fourth), rated a $6.5 chance, but he’s still at it.
I wrote of the remarkable All Star mile winner, Mr Brightside's background story from an unlucky New Zealand debut who was plucked out (bought out) to become a genuine star for Asian based punter/agent Wayne Ormond’s new partners at Lindsay Park, why jockeys were sport’s best athletes, then Debbie Kepitis and her passion for winning, still unquenched post Winx, she had Lindemann win a Sydney Group I.
But Zac Purton flew in for a 180-1 Group 1 double (Artorius and Communist) and matter of factly suggested: "I probably would have made that if not more on a normal Sunday at Sha Tin.”
It was the time every second question was about staying in Hong Kong. We know he now is and can still airship his way in for suited races to feature, though his other Australian winner for the year was Dublin Down at Flemington Cup Day.
No matter what happened in April, like the success of the debut Quokka in Perth, there was no more confronting story than the loss of jockey Dean Holland in a race fall at Donald and I reflected on it here VALE DEAN HOLLAND: "He'd Never Been In A Better Place" where his friend and mentor James Winks reminded us of an unsent application to the Hong Kong Jockey Club for a licence off the back of that special Newmarket win on Godolphin's In Secret.
But I have included a subsequent story sharing the emotions of other families who has lost sons and husbands as a deeper insight into the lingering and forever ongoing impact of such a tragic loss.
The month I wrote about two news making figures, Kate Goodrich and Darren Weir, but finally Goodrich’s decade long battle with officialdom came to a legal end and we get to Weir later in the year - finally.
Just 46 career wins, and two in three years, appropriately with a horse called Too Hard To Handle, I have followed her journey as a journalist as her battles with Racing Victoria after they found her bullied and wrongfully dismissed from training at Kilmore played out a David and Goliath struggle until Supreme Court judge Michael McDonald, cracked heads with Racing Victoria and Country Racing Victoria wigs to sort it out.
It still haunts Goodrich, as she posted this tweet in August.
We will get back to Weir later, but a piece about him working with horses again Darren Weir latest: Ousted trainer back working with horses was as eagerly devoured.
JUNE: DAYBREAK LOVER
Ok a slightly indulgent inclusion from my involvement as a young journalist, learning clocking at Deagon, creating relationships with an extraordinary variety of trainers from a young John Size, one horse battlers and the eclectic and reclusive Danny Duke, who pulled off a remarkable dual Stradbroke with Daybreak Lover after a season between and 59 mares at John Dean’s Springfield Stud.
"He didn't die well," Dean said of Duke.
There was high times and tough times, Duke owing money to bookies, Sir James Killen, Minister For Defence, called in to arbitrate, before being told Daybreak was a moral in the Stradbroke. He was - and set an Australian record in doing so.
But as always there was so much more to this story than that. There was the punt, there normally is, the personal dramas behind the scenes, but in the end it got down to the horse and the race, the rest followed.
What a rich month for stories, Julien Welsh and his extraordinary adventure – mid-life changing crisis, taking off from Benalla heading to Rockhampton, some 1800km on roads less travelled, especially on an old American cart with two horses and a dog.
Or Noel “King” Callow – punters and readers favorite – riding “at the picnics’ as he calls the Gold Coast races, mowing the lawns at the turf club there and driving an Uber for fun. King Callow having a Picnic - with his princess daughter
But for my column on Luke “Stumpy Williams, I won the Victorian Racing Media Association Award for best feature story, sponsored by the Victoria Racing Club for - so better go with that.
"The first six months in jail were awesome," he would say, even with some hint of enthusiasm.
"After that, it got a bit boring."
It was always worth writing and hopefully worth reading after that.
Racing is about all of its players and along comes a foot soldier in Pat Cannon.
Or economic ‘irrationalist' as I wrote. He rarely trained a winner but has been involved in so many of them, such is his horsemanship.
"You work your arse off 24/7 but seemingly always are running into speed humps," Cannon said.
“There have been many times I'm questioned why I am still doing this."
There was also Australia's winningest jockey for the season in Aaron Bullock, licensed to shoot feral animals on rare days off, licensed to ride winner after winner on the road every other (But a Tumut non-Tab on Boxing Day was his highlight):
“I went and got Nan out of the hospital and took her to the races that day and for Christmas. With the misses, Nan has kept me going this season. She’s been battling cancer and had some serious operations, she’s in her 80’s and every time I thought I was having a bad day or doing it tough, a thought of her, puts everything in perspective."
At which point I officially lead the Amelia’s Jewel cheer squad, mindful that is not the role of journalist, but having been behind the scenes with Team Amelia for some time I knew what sort of yarn and horse we had.
A Flemington Group 2 debut stroll and a Moonee Valley track record before things went against script but who can’t forget the excitement she created, the Simon Miller media role, the Peter Walsh candour, the Anthony Beck Hawaiian Shorts cheer squad. She will be back. A legitimate star and diary story we tried to share.
"I've got a freak and he's a legend of a bloke," says Miller of Amelia's Jewel and Peter Walsh.
Again, a little indulgent but on point here I trust re a story.
Two of Australia’s most popular racing figures have been the duo that was Graham Salisbury and Subzero. Media wise, especially on social, they remain revered and very current.
So, a lot of hard work and eventual support from the Victoria Racing Club saw the Salisbury Subzero Memorial Rose Garden officially launched. Look out for the Subzero Rose next spring.
As Graham once said – "there will be a lot of horses who do things just like him in the future, but there will never be one who does things as good as him."
Without A Fight completes the rare Cups double and trainer Anthony Freedman is still to be seen.
“If he was in the Beatles, he’d be George,” says brother Lee, whose won five Cups, each with Anthony by his side.
The story starts with the story of a rare incoming call from Anthony who now has modern media savvy, all round box ticking son Sam to handle all those pesky things away from horses that don't sit well in his orbit (or those that try and break into it).
"A uniquely gifted horseman to be sure, but a person not so much on the march to his own beat, as merely traipsing through life, comfortable with himself, close family and friends, his own self-styled norms, the wet lettuce handshakes, the Steven Wright deadpan, you sort of know him, but you don't.
So, sorry, it was a bad month for Tubba Williams to make a comeback after 44 years: Tubba Untubbed - 44 years out and now with eye to the future. but still a great yarn. He will be at King Island in the middle of the month.
Ollie’s fairytale farewell in Perth was as good as it gets and perhaps the best story of the year from the track and I was able to share some deeper insight from my associations here - OLLIE: He Had a Gift You Can't Coach
But being able to put outed trainer Darren Weir on the record for the first in almost five years, is what journalism and such a column is about.
The term exclusive is often used, Racenet and the many News Limited mastheads, where the story was originally published, were able to share my story about some of racing's biggest names support Weir with his pre-training business and his aspirations ahead, along with observations and insight from other star industry players like Chris Waller and Jamie Lovett.
"I can make a good living out of this (pre-training and spelling), but there's just no excitement, that's the difference."
Of course, the responses were swift and polarised, the point of the column was merely to present the story.
There will be so much to play out on this in the coming months and perhaps the biggest story of the year ahead - will he be back in any form in 2024?
So, my resolution for the year, as Jim told me those years ago, there has got to be a story somewhere – and to continue chasing it. Perhaps racing can follow that storytelling theme, not just click-baiting or mindless templating a question line that takes you nowhere you haven’t already been.
So off to Burrumbeet for another starter as prescribed. Happy 2024 Punters.
And especially, many thanks all for reading.
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