IN A COUNTRY LIKE Australia, thousands, surely hundreds of thousands of words are spoken and written about racing every week. But there are none that bring the level of excitement, reverence, yet also consternation, as the one above.
To be called a champion is to be held above ninety-nine per cent of all horses to have raced. Many have deserved champion status, but just as many have had it placed on them, by fans or media prone to hyperbole, too prematurely or undeservedly.
Some were ready to attach the description to Winx after just fifteen starts. Respected Daily Telegraph journalist Ray Thomas was one. He reasoned her five successive wins — her charges from last in the Sunshine Coast Guineas and Theo Marks, her Epsom win after striking trouble, her brutal domination of the Queensland Oaks and Cox Plate — had all been, in their own ways, ‘outstanding, even freakish’.
Yet Thomas eventually conceded, after some reader umbrage, that Winx had not yet bolted champion status down. A reflective article assessing whether Australia truly had a new equine wonder heard from other experts that Winx was still in the ‘could be’ phase as she began her fifth preparation in the autumn of 2016.1
Winx had now appeared on the World Thoroughbred Rankings, debuting after the Cox Plate at equal nineteenth, with a rating of 122, below top-ranking U.S. galloper American Pharoah on 133. Australia’s confirmed heavyweights, sprinters Chautauqua and Lankan Rupee, shared seventh on 123. In the year-ending rankings for 2015, Winx had shuffled up to equal-eighth.
The UK-based Timeform is the other, older rankings body with international clout. Timeform’s Australian compiler, Gary Crispe, gave Winx a rating of 126 — two points higher than that of the great Sunline after her four-year-old spring. Like Winx, Sunline had won three Group 1s, her haul including a Cox Plate and a Doncaster.
Respected analyst and former jockey Ron Dufficy cautioned that Winx still needed to ‘tick a few more boxes this autumn’. While she’d been ‘untouchable’ since the Sunshine Coast, he said, ‘. . . you can’t just do it in one spring campaign. To be a champion, a horse has to back it up next campaign and keep doing it.’2
Further compounding the reluctance to apply the label was the simple matter of gender. More than males, female horses have the capacity to lose form — to utterly lose interest — overnight. That’s partly what made Black Caviar, unbeaten through her four-year career, and Makybe Diva, winner of an unprecedented three Melbourne Cups, so overwhelming. By contrast, Miss Finland won eleven of her first eighteen starts, remarkably including the breakneck 1200-metre Golden Slipper and the 2500-metre VRC Oaks, but then went off the boil and was retired after eight more failed runs. The flying Miss Andretti won nineteen of her first twenty-eight, including a Royal Ascot victory, before a sequence of tenth, fourth and last spelled her retirement to stud.
Dufficy warned nothing should be taken for granted, quoting advice once given to him by trainer John Hawkes: ‘With mares, one day you have them, the next day they are gone.’
Should Winx sweep all before her that autumn, there would surely be little remaining doubt over her status. Waller had outlined a programme he felt appropriate for a mare with her seemingly boundless ability, but which was ambitious nonetheless. The envisaged highlight would be Sydney’s richest race, the $4-million Queen Elizabeth Stakes over 2000 metres at Randwick. There would likely be one or two other Group 1s as well, but significantly Waller left open the possibility of plans changing.
This was a sign of a new era in the Winx story. Regardless of any tags applied, her deeds had put her into a new sphere. She was, at the very least, the most exciting horse in the country.
‘I’m getting an idea of what Peter Moody went through with Black Caviar,’ Waller said, in a nod to the different world of training a horse this good.3
He recognised life had changed dramatically. ‘We now had the pressure of having a Cox Plate winner to prepare — this was a new challenge for us,’ he’d later recall. ‘The pressure was also starting to build to keep her winning record intact.’4
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Winx had come back from the paddock in January 2016 slightly more developed, but still with the deceptive outward appearance of an average mare of average size. With Bowman eager to never be parted from her again, they went round in two barrier trials for a third and a sixth. The second had her among familiar rivals such as First Seal and Hartnell. A distant last was Gust Of Wind. Though a solid sixth in the previous spring’s Melbourne Cup, Gust Of Wind would have three runs that autumn and finish second-last, last and last, to become a stark reminder of how a mare can ‘train off’, her upset of Winx becoming embalmed as her final claim to fame.
First up, Winx would contest the weight-for-age Apollo Stakes on 12 February. The Group 2 would have highlighted that Randwick meeting in any event, but Winx’s presence brought added lustre. In an eleven-horse field little resembling a Cox Plate, she went to the start a dominant $1.60 favourite. Yet there were some, perhaps still not convinced by Winx, perhaps feeling she now needed longer than this 1400-metre contest, who were prepared to gamble against her.
Strong support came for another Street Cry mare, Gerald Ryan’s well-performed Solicit, with Kerrin McEvoy aboard. The five-year-old firmed from $6 to $4.80 on the day.
Now dubbed ‘the great mare’ in the run by caller Darren Flindell, Winx made a smooth start to her comeback race. Bowman settled her midfield on the fence from the inside gate, while McEvoy set a brisk pace to test her on Solicit. There was some cause for worry for Winx fans when, moving into the leading trio early in the straight, she was tightened for room. But the anxiety lasted only as long as it took Bowman to switch into space on the inside, and for Winx to switch to another gear. She drew level at the 100, and though Solicit fought gamely, Winx accelerated still another notch to pull away to her one-length margin. (At Solicit’s next start, punters would load up again on the back of an effort as close to outstanding as it got at that time — getting within a length of Winx. Backed from $2 to $1.85, she duly won the Group 2 Guy Walter Stakes, also over 1400 metres at Randwick.)
Winx’s returning win came in no special time and against average opposition, but she was now generating effects reminiscent of the mania that had surrounded Black Caviar. One betting firm followed the Apollo with a special offer, allowing punters to back Winx to stay unbeaten through 2016 — at what would ultimately seem the luxurious odds of 20 to 1!
While the Apollo rated as straightforward, Winx had underlined her versatility. Only two other horses had won the 2040-metre Cox Plate and the 1400-metre Apollo Stakes in the same season. One was Sunline, the other Red Anchor, and both became Horse of the Year. It was perhaps a slightly quirky but significant piece of history, and it emphasised what Waller had before him. He was a man enormously relieved after his star’s hitch-free return.
‘This was probably the most nervous I’ve been in a long time,’ Waller said. ‘There is a sense of importance about training a horse like her that is on the cusp of superstar status. I’ve been second-guessing myself the last few weeks — is she too big? Is she ready?’
Waller was lengths behind others when it came to that word. In his mind it was clear: Winx would have to win a second Cox Plate to be called a champion. But he knew he was sitting on a volcano.
‘I’m aware that people want to see her race and it is important for racing that she keeps winning,’ he said. ‘I just hope everyone is with us for the ride.’
It was time for Waller to strap himself in a little tighter, as Winx aimed to stretch her winning sequence to seven, and with a fourth Group 1.
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It’s a fair bet more people have heard of the Chipping Norton Stakes than Chipping Norton the suburb. The weight-forage 1600-metre race takes its name from a district beside Warwick Farm, and was a long-term highlight of that course before being switched to Randwick, on and off, then permanently from 2016.
With winners automatically qualifying for bigger targets in the Doncaster and Sydney Cup, the race has consistently attracted quality fields. The honour roll includes Phar Lap in 1930, Bernborough in 1946, Tulloch in 1958 and 1960, and a modern star who virtually made the race his own by claiming it four times from 1999 to 2002, Tie The Knot.
That Winx would add her name to the list in the $600,000 Group 1 event seemed a fait accompli, going by her starting price of $1.35, but some rival camps entertained thoughts of an upset. Hartnell would take the mare on again, first-up from the spell that followed his Melbourne Cup failure. The import was the only other runner under double-figure odds, but only just, after drifting from $8 to $9.50.
Australian Derby and Caulfield Cup winner Mongolian Khan was also resuming, apparently in top condition after a setback with colic, and had minor support at $12. There was interest at $15 in the David Hayes–trained gelding Dibayani, late of Ireland and Hong Kong, who’d been fourth in the Apollo but would appreciate a further 200 metres. At the other end of the scale there was Gust Of Wind, a long shot at $81, having her last meeting with Winx in what turned out to be her third-last race before retirement.
While some rival trainers still thought they might beat Winx, the Waller camp was surging in its ever-upward trajectory. The day before the race, Waller announced an expansion to a third metropolitan training base — Rosehill, Flemington, and now Warwick Farm. Few punters doubted Winx would add some cream on top the following afternoon.
All the same, a fine and warm last weekend of summer had presented an unusually quiet day for Waller up until he saddled his star mare — only five starters, and only one of them managing a place. At least he got to see Solicit add credence to Winx’s form, as if it was needed, by winning the Guy Walter in the previous race.
Setting after her seventh win in a row, Winx began well under Bowman and sat midfield, almost teasingly on Gust Of Wind’s outside, while roughie Magic Hurricane set the pace ahead of Dibayani. Bowman bided his time before taking off at the 600 to turn four-wide, and before long the result was clear. While Dibayani tried to claw to the lead under heavy whip riding halfway down the straight, Winx drove past on his outside to wrap up proceedings by a length and a half. Though it’s the mark of the elite to make the difficult look mundane, this win seemed even more straightforward than the one before.
With each race, though, more was emerging about the indomitable bay who was bringing so much more to the track than her modest physical presence. Bowman brought her back to scale with his now familiar ‘She’s apples’ winning salute — touching thumb with forefinger, with the other three digits extended in what could neatly double as a ‘W’ for Winx. When he got off he was awestruck — again.
‘I have never ridden a horse that can sustain a sprint like her,’ Bowman said.
He knew by now he didn’t need to have the mare close to the lead in her races or, for that matter, to hold her up for a late and sharp charge. He had the rare pleasure of being able to take virtually any position he liked. ‘Knowing she is the horse she is, I was able to pull her out and she put herself there. I would be more inclined to wait a bit longer on any other horse but she has that X factor about her, she has that top speed and you can rely on it.’
Like driving a high-performance car, Bowman was coming to relish what he could do with this horse, where he could put her: to sweep forward, left, right, or even to easily move down a gear when it was needed to secure an optimum spot. As if it needed saying, Bowman now officially rated Winx the best horse he’d ridden. And he’d been on many very good ones, such as So You Think, Bart Cummings’ dual Cox Plate winner who later won five Group 1s for Aidan O’Brien in Europe, plus five-time top-level winner Racing To Win from the John O’Shea yard, and the Waller-trained Shoot Out, another who won five Group 1s including two Chipping Nortons.
Likewise, Waller was loving Winx through a trainer’s eyes — aside from the pressure her emerging greatness was, ironically, starting to create.
‘She is an absolute pleasure to train. You can do anything with her,’ he beamed. ‘She went three weeks into a Cox Plate and only had two lead-up runs into that race. There is a lot of pressure when she races, because she is expected to win but she is special to watch.’
With $4 million in the bank, four Group 1s, seven wins on end and eleven from seventeen starts, Winx was starting to be hailed as not just the best horse in Australia, but perhaps the finest on the planet. The clamour was already starting for her to be raced overseas.
Since the possibilities seemed endless, the question was which one to pursue? Waller had started to think very big indeed, telling reporters Winx might now tackle not only the $4-million Queen Elizabeth Stakes but also the $3-million Doncaster Mile beforehand. The two April Group 1s were the highlights of The Championships — Randwick’s autumn carnival that had been remodelled and revamped with great fanfare in 2014. For Australia’s most exciting horse to win the double would suitably underline their prestige — not to mention bring the Winx camp $4.3 million — but the task was ambitious given they were only a week apart.
Another race had to be chosen first, and after some thought was given to reverting to a fillies-and-mares event in the Group 2 Emancipation Stakes, Winx would instead continue in open company, targeting another Group 1 in the George Ryder Stakes.