AFTER THE ENDURING SCENES she’d created at Moonee Valley in the spring of 2017, what could Winx possibly do for an encore in the autumn of 2018?
The desire was high to see her compete overseas. So high, in fact, that international racing authorities had been courting her connections. Officials from Ascot, and other leading English tracks Goodwood and York, flew to Sydney in February for talks with Waller, Kepitis and Peter Tighe aimed at luring the mare north for Royal Ascot in June. The English representatives, after consultation with counterparts in France and Ireland, had pencilled out a program for Winx to race in those countries as well. Aside from those in Europe, race club representatives from Japan and Hong Kong had met with Tighe, in Melbourne in the spring, to discuss luring the mare to their jurisdictions.
‘We even get offered [appearance] money but it is not about the money, never has been,’ Tighe said. ‘There have been some discussions about next year and look, it would be good for Winx, it would be good for the trainer, it would be good for racing if she went. But there are a million scenarios and nothing has been decided.’1
For the nearer future, nearer to home, more riches and records awaited. All going to plan that autumn, Winx would pass John Henry’s record for the most Group 1s won by any horse in the world, end up $4 million clear of Makybe Diva on the Australasian stakes-winners list, with around $19 million, and pass Black Caviar’s twenty-five straight wins with her last run of the campaign.
Waller set out a program that looked very familiar to Winx watchers. For the third straight year, she’d resume in the Apollo Stakes and step up to Group 1 for the Chipping Norton and George Ryder. She’d then make her second assault on the Queen Elizabeth Stakes, which was shaping as successive win number twenty-six.
Unusually for her, all did not go exactly to plan. It was nothing to do with the mare, however. Showing what an inseparable unit horse and rider had become, the changes to the preparation were linked to Hugh Bowman — and the stewards.
Bowman had been flying high, like Waller and Winx herself, a freakish talent at the height of his powers at the prime age of thirty-seven. A month after his and Winx’s third Cox Plate, he claimed one of the world’s most important races, the Japan Cup, after a superb ride on local $14-shot Grand Cheval, who sat fourth on the fence before running down the favourite, Kitasan Black, in the last 100 metres. The win was Bowman’s sixteenth Group 1 of the year — six of which had come on Winx — and helped him become the first Australian to win the IFHA’s World’s Best Jockey title when its annual honours were announced at the end of 2017.
‘I am very proud,’ Bowman said. ‘Not so much to be called the best jockey in the world, but to be recognised as one of the best jockeys in the world.’2
It was, in fact, a heady summer all round for Team Winx, with Bowman’s award presentation, at a ceremony in Hong Kong in January, closely followed by Waller being inducted into the New Zealand Racing Hall of Fame, alongside the likes of Vegas Showgirl’s trainer Graeme Rogerson, and jockey Jim Cassidy.
‘I’m very proud about it,’ Waller said. ‘When I started, I wanted to be known as a reasonable trainer. I looked at trainers that were getting close to a thousand winners, which was a big deal in New Zealand, when I was twenty-two or twenty-three, and thought twenty-five winners [a year] for forty years and I might get there.’3
Waller had long ago flown past that target like Winx flew past horses in a home straight. After slightly less than twenty-one years of training, his winners tally stood at more than 2000, including seventy-five Group 1 winners — the seventh-most of any trainer in Australia, a remarkable achievement considering his first had come only ten years earlier through Triple Honour’s 2008 Doncaster Mile. Also in this February of 2018, Waller set a new mark as the fastest trainer to reach one hundred Sydney winners in a season, eclipsing his own ‘quickest century’ of two years earlier, when he had broken Tommy Smith’s long-standing record set in 1976.
Despite the Winx camp’s dizzying start to the year, bad news was just around the corner. Three weeks after Bowman received his award in Hong Kong, and just a couple of weeks before Winx’s scheduled return for the Apollo Stakes on 17 February, the jockey’s golden run hit the buffers.
The in-demand Bowman rode at Warwick Farm on the Australia Day holiday of Friday, 26 January, and incurred a seven-meeting careless riding suspension. That wasn’t so bad. He could return to the saddle on 15 February. Better still, the resumption date became 10 February when Bowman successfully applied to stewards to have the ban commence five days earlier than first announced, after his scheduled rides in Hong Kong on the Sunday.
But on the day in between, Saturday, 27 January, Bowman rode at Ellerslie, New Zealand, and fell foul of stewards there, too. That twelve-day careless riding suspension would begin when his first ban ended, sidelining him until 22 February.
It was an up-and-down weekend all round for the country-hopping jockey. He rode two winners at Warwick Farm, but one of them, Tswalu, brought his suspension after Bowman allowed her to shift inwards near the 900-metre mark when insufficiently clear of other runners, causing interference to three horses. The next day, he won a Group 2 in New Zealand, but was also a narrow second in both Ellerslie’s lucrative Karaka Million and the City of Auckland Cup, the race that brought his second ban when his mount Five To Midnight shifted out in the home straight, impeding two other runners. On the Sunday Bowman had to settle for a close third in one of Hong Kong’s major Group 1s. Mind you, it might have been ironic had he won, since it’s called The Stewards’ Cup.
Returning to Sydney, Bowman considered his options. Rather than have his charges quashed, the most feasible possibility was appealing for a reduction of his sentences in both his New South Wales and New Zealand bans, hoping shaving some time off both would enable him to be back for Winx’s return.
Waller mulled his choices, too. It was rare, perhaps unprecedented, for a horse to miss a scheduled race because the most-desired jockey wasn’t available. But, careful not to underestimate the bond and understanding that had developed through twenty of Winx’s twenty-two straight wins, Waller said that was a strong possibility. Waller did add, however, that Winx wouldn’t miss the Apollo if her fitness for bigger tests later in the campaign demanded it.
The ride would be a high-pressure one, with Winx resuming over the Randwick 1400 metres that had almost brought her demise in the Warwick Stakes at the start of her previous preparation. Speculation flowed about who’d partner the mare if Bowman could not. A host of names was put forward by the media — and by opportunistic betting agencies framing markets on the issue — including Blake Shinn, Brenton Avdulla, Glyn Schofield, Joao Moreira, Damien Oliver and even English star Ryan Moore, who’d seen Winx’s power when third in her first Cox Plate aboard Highland Reel. Could Jason Collett, who’d so fatefully given up the ride on her three years earlier, gain another chance? Or Larry Cassidy, who’d been aboard at the start of Winx’s streak? Cassidy certainly wasn’t hesitating. ‘I’ve contacted Chris and part-owner Peter Tighe and put my name up to ride her again,’ he said. ‘I’d love another go on her.’4
Finally, with media interest intense, Bowman made his moves to cling to the ride. His appeal against the Warwick Farm suspension would be heard in Sydney, at Australian Turf Club headquarters at Randwick, on Monday, 5 February, with his New Zealand challenge set for four days later.
If the double appeal smacked of desperation, that was reflected in the blunt and swift outcome of his first hearing. Through his lawyer, Paul O’Sullivan, Bowman argued for a reduction of the ban, from seven meetings to five, saying the interference he’d caused on Tswalu was only minor. But the Racing NSW Appeals Panel showed no sympathy, taking only thirty minutes to uphold the stewards’ view that the interference fell into the ‘medium’ category, rather than ‘low’, and warranted a seven-meeting ban. Deflated, Bowman left the hearing saying he and his legal team would further discuss his New Zealand appeal and would proceed unless they felt they’d be ‘pushing the proverbial’ uphill.
A day later, however, Waller made the decision for him. Winx would miss the Apollo and resume, with Bowman aboard, in the Chipping Norton on 3 March.
In a press release he issued over a decision that had been dominating the sports pages, Waller said the switch, made in consultation with Winx’s owners, had not been undertaken lightly. Winx was ‘well ahead of schedule’ fitness-wise after two Rosehill barrier trials under Bowman — a two-length sixth on 22 January, and a fifth on the day of Bowman’s failed appeal. She would also have another, more serious trial before her resumption.
Showing her star power, the ATC said she could appear on Apollo Stakes day after all, with a special 1200-metre trial featuring five other Waller gallopers scheduled between races. In what almost trumped Waller’s Apollo victory with Endless Drama as the highlight of the day, Winx won by four lengths.
‘Hugh Bowman is a very important part of Winx,’ Waller said in his press release. ‘We feel we can go straight into the Chipping Norton first up without the need to resume in the Apollo Stakes as we had originally planned.’
Bowman, who dropped his New Zealand appeal, expressed his gratitude. His autumn problems weren’t over, however.
***
As Bowman had once said, and as he’d found with his back-to-back suspensions, horse racing was unpredictable, even if you were Winx. There were still some — decidedly faint — causes of doubt as she set out on the Chipping Norton. Would she be underdone for missing the Apollo and resuming over 1600 metres? Would she be as good now, a few months off turning seven, as she was the previous spring?
A strong crowd, from well-heeled newcomers on their first day at the track, to seasoned old-timers keen to catch a glimpse, turned out to pay homage to the mare — a very plain title by now for a national icon — in her long-awaited, and delayed, return to racing. It shaped as a fine, sunny day at Randwick, as well as a historic one. Though this was Winx, her fans, many of whom waved her blue-and-white flags, braced themselves for the less savoury possibilities: another botched start? Another massive task turning for home?
Eight rivals would take her on, headed by the highly rated Victoria Derby–winning four-year-old Prized Icon, the second-favourite at $16 after a close fourth in the Apollo. Stampede, a dual black-type winner from the Waterhouse–Bott stable, was next at $21. Waller saddled two other runners, the stayers Who Shot Thebarman and Libran, who were working towards longer things.
Winx had a chance of breaking her modern Sydney Group 1 odds record of $1.09, having opened at $1.08. But by race time forty minutes later she’d eased a cent, and would start at her career ‘low’ price for the third time. When they jumped, Winx started well enough from barrier six and settled second-last, eight lengths behind the leader Stampede, while Prized Icon sat fourth, one off the fence. Along the back of the course and winding down the High Street side, Bowman was sitting quietly, the mare appeared to be travelling smoothly, and there were no hearts in mouths or causes for alarm this day. Approaching the home turn, Bowman eased Winx wide and, in a reminder that all were again in the presence of a very rare horse indeed, that was when the roaring and the applause started.
Six deep rounding the bend, Bowman simply released the brakes and Winx strode forward in her imperious style. She pushed past Prized Icon, whose rider Glyn Schofield felt that strange mix of disappointment and awe again, as he had on Winx’s vanquished George Ryder rival Le Romain a year earlier, and on Hay List against Black Caviar. Winx also easily passed another million-dollar winner, Classic Uniform, to go to second, before speeding by the tiring Stampede at the 300, clearing the decks for this latest homecoming parade. She careered away to win by seven lengths, the third-longest margin of her career.
‘She might have finally matured,’ Bowman said. It spelled doom for the rest of Australasia’s thoroughbred elite, and delight for racing fans. The autumn promised still greater domination.
The win was so dismissive, so routine, and bereft of previous first-up drama, you could almost have been forgiven for forgetting one glaring headline — that Winx had now won more Group 1 races than any horse in Australian history, and indeed any horse (jumpers excluded) in world history, outside of just one country. There was just one galloper left to deal with in the Group 1 pantheon: the American champion John Henry.
Straightforward though the win was, Waller was as emotional as ever while Bowman stood Winx in the home straight to enjoy her ovation from the stands, before she was led in by a beaming Kepitis.
‘To see her come back like this is — pretty special,’ Waller said, breaking into tears. ‘She’s getting the imagination of Australia. It’s a great story.’
A smiling Bowman said the 2018 Winx now clearly appreciated racing on less hard surfaces, such as Randwick’s soft 5 that day, and appeared to have gained maturity, judging by her behaviour in the barriers.
‘That’s where I’ve always been a little concerned — she’s a little agitated, a little edgy,’ he said. ‘She’s shown those signs throughout her career really, but this preparation she hasn’t shown those signs.’
The sentiment was shared by Waller, who agreed it was possible she had come back better than ever. The trainer spoke of Winx’s ‘fantastic’ business-like attitude. By this stage of her career, she could be relied on, without doubt, to turn up for work and perform. Her job was that of a racing superstar, a status she grasped from the adulation of the crowds, who stood to cheer her back to scale after every win. Afterwards, like many a superstar, she was happy to leave the spotlight behind.
‘She knows her job and she enjoys her job and she enjoys going home and just being another horse.’
Of course she wasn’t just another horse. Eight days later, the latest World Thoroughbred Rankings were released. Winx had returned to the top of the list but, frustratingly for her fans, again had to share No.1 billing. While Arrogate had petered out into retirement, another American dirt-track stallion, Gun Runner, had surged to the equal top by taking the Group 1 Pegasus World Cup in Florida in January. The pair were rated 129, three points below Winx’s mark after the previous spring’s Cox Plate. Winx was comfortably still the world’s fastest horse on turf, with Happy Clapper the next best on 121. Some were beginning to wonder, however, whether Winx would ever get to claim the outright top spot by herself.