WINX HEADED TO MELBOURNE for the 2016 spring carnival in her usual way, on an overnight drive from Sydney in a horse-carrying truck with a handful of stablemates. Something was different, though: she was Australia’s newly crowned Horse of the Year, an inevitable honour following her unbeaten seven-start 2015–16 season. Out of a panel of sixty judges, she was voted number one by fifty-nine of them. The only question was who could possibly have been the bitter old curmudgeon who voted against her? Or had someone bumped his elbow at the crucial moment?
On a less decisive poll, she now had a 127 rating on the World Thoroughbred Rankings, but had slipped to equal fourth on the planet. California Chrome was on top with 133, with three others promoted: Japan’s A Shin Hikari (turf) and American Arrogate (dirt) had ratings of 129, with France’s Almanzor (turf) on 127. Winx’s rating was still based on her Doncaster Mile victory, under a system based on stand-out performances from individual races, rather than the longer-term overall picture — a system that later in her career would begin to look bizarre. In any event, Winx would have a chance to boost her rating with her second scheduled Melbourne run, the Cox Plate, if perhaps not so much her first.
The time-honoured, weight-for-age Caulfield Stakes has produced a long list of renowned winners since its inception in 1886. These include the super mare Wakeful in 1901 and ’02, Bernborough in 1946, Rising Fast in 1954, and the outstanding gallopers Lord and Winfreux, who won the race three times each between 1958 and 1967. Kingston Town won in 1981 and ’82, the Inghams’ Lonhro in 2002 and ’03. The race had also been won, in 1992, by a galloper whose quality Waller knew well: Paddy Busuttin’s Castletown.
A Group 1 over a tough 2000-metre trip, the race is consistently one of the hardest to win on the Australian calendar, since it typically boasts a capacity, high-class field sparkling with several Cox Plate aspirants.
Not this time, however.
Thanks to a Sydney mare who was making history in all sorts of ways, the 2016 version would be known for a quirkier reason: it was a Group 1, worth $600,000, which attracted only three runners.
How more thoroughly than this has a horse scared off its rivals?
It wasn’t a case of a small field beset by scratchings on a rainy raceday. There were three acceptors for the event, making it the smallest Group 1 field in Australia since the inception of modern categorisations in 1978. The club had allocated prizemoney down to the $12,000 for running eighth. A horse could have run fourth and claimed a decent $27,000. Some people joked online that they might run a lap of Caulfield to get that prize, if they could only see out the 2000 metres.
Seven horses had been put forward since nominations opened weeks earlier, including Lucia Valentina, plus Lloyd Williams’ classy ex-European The United States, and his stayer Gallante. Those types of horses didn’t particularly need the prizemoney, but perhaps connections felt they also didn’t need the dent in confidence brought by a hiding from Winx, so they decided not to pay their acceptance fee for the race and to instead go elsewhere.
Things were looking very grim indeed only an hour before the acceptances deadline on the Thursday before the race, with Winx the only confirmed acceptor. Doubts emerged over whether the event would go ahead. Some believed the Melbourne Racing Club would still run it with only Winx going around in a ‘walkover’, since scrapping the race one year might compromise its Group 1 standing in the future. It would hardly be an ideal tune-up for a Cox Plate.
That possibility, at least, would not be put to the test, as acceptances were finally paid for two rivals — Black Heart Bart and He Or She.
Online forums were awash with punters scorning other trainers for staying away, arguing there was still strong prizemoney down to eighth, and that there were no certainties in racing. Still, the three-horse race would create a different kind of intrigue, and some concern for Waller.
Winx’s two foes were no equine ‘mugs’ on the make for easy money. Black Heart Bart would have been a worthy presence in any weight-for-age field. The versatile ex-Perth galloper from the premiership stable of Darren Weir had won three Group 1s, two at Caulfield, including his last start in the 1800-metre Underwood Stakes. Six-year-old gelding He Or She had won nine of his twenty-three starts for more than $650,000 in stakes money, and had run Group 1 placings at his past two starts.
Turf experts had a whimsical field day, opining on the tactics that might be employed by the three riders — Hugh Bowman, Brad Rawiller on Black Heart Bart, and Craig Williams on He Or She. Would a proverbial game of cat-and-mouse unfold, in scenes resembling a velodrome? Minds went back to the specially contrived 1992 match-race, also at Caulfield, in which Let’s Elope beat her fellow champion Better Loosen Up. They also went to the 1970 Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Flemington, when several scratchings serendipitously left just two outstanding gallopers — Big Philou and Rain Lover — in the event, won in a thriller by the former.
He Or She’s co-trainer David Hayes could see the lighter, though still lucrative, side, saying, ‘Winx is a champion but we’re having a gallop for $54,000 [third prize]. That’s the worst-case scenario. We double that if we run second, and it’s $360,000 if we cause an upset. We’ll be sitting back last of the three and follow the other two. We’ll look to join in the big dance over the last hundred metres.’1
Waller, however, had his concerns, saying the lack of opponents for Winx was ‘not ideal because she loves the pressure on, and this won’t be that sort of race’. Bowman was also mindful that, despite the small field, Winx ‘has to race at a premium to make sure she’s ready for the Cox Plate’.2
If there was any inkling of doubt about Winx taking it out, it may have been because Caulfield is known as a graveyard for Sydney horses used to running clockwise and turning on their right leg. While the long stretches of Flemington and the cambered turns of Moonee Valley are aids to northern newcomers, Caulfield’s tight bends can often bring Sydney horses unbalanced and undone, particularly the turn into its relatively short 320-metre home straight.
It was widely agreed even Kingston Town was not at his best on the east Melbourne track, his Caulfield Stakes second and Caulfield Cup third on his first visit south in 1980 having brought the derisory tag of ‘Sydney champion’. It was a mark of his ability that he was still able to win the Caulfield Stakes the following two years.
In truth, it was only the foolhardy who bet against Winx winning this most oddball of races, a Group 1 tune-up for the Cox Plate that looked more like some morning trackwork with a couple of running mates.
Bookmakers were still prepared to chance their arm on somewhat ridiculous circumstances bringing a very ridiculous outcome. Could the pace become muddled with only three runners, and one of the other two jockeys steal a winning break midrace? Might Winx not have her ‘game face’ on, seeing only two others in the starting stalls beside her? After all, it was often felt her lack of form in barrier trials might have come from the fact she knew they didn’t have the vibe of a proper race. In any case, Winx opened at a relatively juicy $1.20, before starting at $1.24. Black Heart Bart had some support, going from $4.80 to $4.60 and back again. He Or She was the clear choice to place third — or last, if your glass is half-empty — at $21.
While many won’t have bet on the race, a large crowd watched with keen interest as the first of the day’s four Group 1s got underway on a warm October afternoon. Rawiller took Black Heart Bart to the lead, with Bowman sitting on He Or She’s outside, but Waller’s fears about a slow pace were realised as the threesome crawled to the first corner and up Caulfield’s gradual slope. It seemed there was more pressure on caller Greg Miles to sound interesting than on the horses themselves.
Eventually Rawiller, the man charged with the gargantuan task of toppling Winx in a race like this, made his move, relatively early, increasing the pace heading past the 1000 and going three lengths clear. Yet soon enough the mare slid effortlessly up to Black Heart Bart’s rump approaching the turn. He carted her wide on the corner, and matched strides doggedly for the first hundred metres of the straight, but Winx inevitably fought off his challenge, and pulled away to beat him by two lengths. He Or She gained his solid payday, despite being a further four lengths astern.
‘It was always going to be a sprint home and I didn’t want to let Black Heart Bart get too far in front,’ Bowman said, after racking up another Group 1 like shelling peas. ‘She was just too good again.’
It wasn’t the toughest of races, but what was evident again was Winx’s extraordinary ability to sustain a sprint. She ran her last three furlongs in close enough to eleven seconds each, and her last 1000 metres in just 56.83 seconds. To put that into context, the first race of the day was a 1000-metre event for two-year-olds, who clocked 57.50 seconds. The track record for a 1000-metre race is only 55.97 seconds. Notwithstanding the fact the latter two times were set from standing starts, Winx’s lengthy sprint after having already covered 1000 metres was impressive to say the least.
Again, the record books needed checking. In passing Kingston Town, Winx had equalled Tulloch’s best streak of twelve straight wins, and was now just two behind the best streak of the most towering figure of all, Phar Lap. She’d risen to sixth on the Australian stakes-winners list, with $7.49 million. And she now had eight Group 1s. The only mares to have won more were Black Caviar, with fifteen, and Sunline, with thirteen.
Less emotional than after higher-pressure events, Waller was in a celebratory mood following this one, praising his unflappable jockey.
‘When I saw Brad Rawiller go for Black Heart Bart, I knew we had control of the race,’ Waller said. ‘Then Winx continued to respond, so the last 200 metres was easier [to watch] than the first 1800 metres. Hugh Bowman is sensational. He doesn’t panic. He is Mr Cool. I didn’t give him any instructions before the race. I have full confidence in him.’
As for whether the race was an adequate tune-up for the Cox Plate? ‘Winx will only do what she has to, but she will be ready in two weeks’ time.’
So, too, would Hartnell.
The big gelding wasn’t prowling around Caulfield that day. He’d had his final Cox Plate lead-up six days earlier at Flemington in the Turnbull Stakes. In a ‘proper’ twelve-horse field, also over roughly the Cox Plate distance of 2000 metres, he had crushed his rivals a third straight time, beating Jameka, who would dominate the Caulfield Cup two weeks afterward, by three and a quarter lengths. Bowman got a good look at Hartnell that day, or his hindquarters at least, finishing seven lengths behind him on fourth-placed Preferment.
Only an hour after the Caulfield Stakes, the headlines started flying, pointing to a Cox Plate battle for the ages.
‘Winx, the reigning champion with twelve successive wins. And Hartnell, the Godolphin giant who beats up on his rivals for practice,’ wrote Ray Thomas in the Telegraph. ‘It is a promoter’s dream, with the stage set for the most anticipated race of the spring.’3
Winx was still a $2 favourite to join the elite band of dual Cox Plate winners. But Hartnell was now at $2.80. It was two weeks before the two dominant forces in Australian racing would collide.