AS WE’VE HEARD BEFORE, fairy tales are what keep many an owner and trainer going in racing. There is one that stands above most.
In January 1976, at a mixed thoroughbred sale at Keeneland, Kentucky, local horseman John Callaway bought a young colt. A little like Winx, the bay yearling was not much to look at. He was small, light and, worse still, had conformation issues, specifically being ‘back at the knee’. It’s a problem in which the lower leg angles rearwards, portending a short racing career. Unlike Winx, the colt had a terrible pedigree, by an obscure sire with the suitably plain name of Ole Bob Bowers, who’d once changed hands for just US$900. Furthermore, the colt entered the sales ring with blood on his head, after banging himself in his stall. Callaway would later reflect the yearling ‘looked like a drowned rat with blood running off his forehead’.1
He still bought the colt, for all of $1100. Even then, he ended up with regrets, and soon sold him on — for $2200. The horse raced as John Henry, and, sold again for $25,000 as a moderately performed three-year-old, he went on to become one of the greatest gallopers to appear at a racetrack. He finished in 1984 with a then world-leading stakes haul of US$6.6 million — US$16 million in today’s money.
John Henry retired as the winner of thirty-nine races, sixteen of them at the top level, or Grade 1 as they’re known in the U.S. It was a global record no horse would approach for nearly three decades, not until champion French mare Goldikova won her fourteenth and last Group 1 in 2011, and Black Caviar her fifteenth in 2013.
For Winx in the autumn of 2018, John Henry was the only giant ghost of the past left to eclipse on the Group 1 table. She had equalled him in the Chipping Norton. Now to go clear at the top, with her third attempt at the George Ryder Stakes.
Again, it wouldn’t all be plain sailing.
Two weeks before the Ryder, Bowman was eagerly plotting a path towards winning a second of Australia’s ‘big four’, in the Golden Slipper. He was legged aboard Waller’s best chance for the race, an unbeaten colt, part-owned by Peter and Patty Tighe, called Performer, for the important lead-up of the Todman Stakes at Randwick. Racegoers, accustomed to watching Bowman’s armchair rides on Winx, were this time left horrified.
Looming on the leaders at the 150, Performer dramatically shied to his left, tossing Bowman off at top speed. The world’s top-rated jockey hit the turf with sickening force. While lucky that two trailing horses were able to swerve to avoid galloping on him, Bowman lay unconscious in front of the grandstands for several moments. After coming to, he spent a night in hospital, diagnosed with concussion. Doctors later forbade him from riding the following Saturday, and doubts again surfaced as to whether he’d be able to partner Winx in her next assignment.
Thankfully for Winx’s other half, after more scans early in the second week Bowman was cleared to ride on Ryder Stakes day, when he would also try again on Performer in the Slipper.
Aside from her jockey’s misfortune, and the fact she’d again be dropping 100 metres from her last start to the Rosehill 1500 metres, there were a couple of reasons for concern amid the five rivals out to thwart Winx’s bid for Group 1 number seventeen.
Happy Clapper was back for his seventh tilt at the Winx windmill, fresh from claiming his second Group 1 — in five starts — in the 1300-metre Canterbury Stakes. His down-to-earth trainer, Pat Webster, was not underestimating his task, however. In fact, he conceded defeat. While many a jockey had felt the rough end of what it was like to ride against Winx, Webster gave a telling insight into what it was like to train against her.
‘He has run second to her twice before and will probably run second again,’ he said. ‘She breaks them, because she completely takes horses out of their comfort zone. They almost try too hard to go with her and beat her and that’s it. Old Clapper — he does that every time he goes around. But when he has taken her on, it’s like he has been fifteen rounds with Ali. You have to pick him back up and let him recover, because it’s a different level of racing.’2
But there was one upside to playing second fiddle to greatness.
‘My daughter knows nothing about racing,’ Webster said, ‘and she said: “Look on the bright side, Dad, at least they’ll still be watching ‘Clapper’ in 50 years’ time. He’s run second to Winx that many times they’ll be watching him too.”’3
More threateningly in the eyes of some, Winx was to have her first meeting with possibly Australia’s most exciting three-year-old.
Kementari, an imposing colt, black like his father Lonhro, and with the forces of Godolphin and their accomplished new trainer, James Cummings, at his back, was sweeping all before him. After a less-than-fulfilled first two campaigns, including a close second in the Caulfield Guineas the previous spring, he had blossomed that Sydney autumn with three superb wins in three-year-old company at all three group levels.
He’d carry only 1 kilogram less than Winx under the Ryder’s weight-for-age conditions — whereas spring three-year-old Royal Symphony had had 7.5 kilograms less than her in her latest Cox Plate — but some still wondered whether the colt might just emerge as that up-and-coming youngster of Waller’s nightmares, and at this most important milestone run of Winx’s career.
In the Chipping Norton, Prized Icon had been second-favourite at $16 to Winx’s $1.09. For the Ryder, Kementari would be second elect at $8.50, with Winx $1.16.
Waller and Bowman spoke of their great respect for the horse dubbed the new kid on the block. ‘Kementari has been very impressive in his runs this preparation,’ Waller said. ‘It’s good to see form horses taking Winx on.’
Cummings, son of Anthony, grandson of Bart, duly paid his respects to racing’s queen, but predicted his colt would uphold his burgeoning reputation. ‘We have our feet firmly on the ground when it comes to appreciating how far behind Winx he is when it comes to achievement and world rankings,’ he said. ‘Nevertheless, he is a rising star. We expect our colt to run well.’
Bowman remained confident, saying he’d come to realise Winx relished racing on her home track — where she hadn’t performed since the highest-rating run of her life, her seven-length romp in her second Ryder Stakes a year earlier.
‘She does love it here at Rosehill,’ Bowman said. ‘It’s her home track and she doesn’t get to race here too often. I didn’t think it so much when she won her first George Ryder but I certainly felt she was enjoying being on her home track last year — and it was one of her best performances in my opinion.’4
Aside from the top two in betting, Happy Clapper would start at $21 and was not rated highly by most, drifting from $14. Making up the numbers — and competing for at least the $10,000 on offer for running last — were Kris Lees’ pair Invincible Gem and Clearly Innocent, and the Bjorn Baker–trained Crack Me Up. A four-year-old gelding, Crack Me Up was a last-start Group 3 winner and could claim, in one way, to have matched Winx. Nine months earlier he had won the race she had made famous, the Sunshine Coast Guineas. But there the similarities stopped, most punters reckoned, and he was sent out an unloved $71 chance.
Rosehill was not quite the bog it had been for the previous year’s George Ryder–Golden Slipper Day, but after rain in the days leading up to the meeting the track was still rated a heavy 8 for the first race. At least the forecasted showers didn’t eventuate, and the surface would be upgraded to a soft 7 after the opening event. With the sun shining, a strong crowd — well above the Slipper Day average at almost 22,000 — filled the course. Winx flags and caps again dotted the stands, with racegoers crowding around the mare’s day stall to watch her being saddled for her 2.45 pm engagement in the second of the day’s five Group 1s.
While Winx was at prohibitive odds, many in the crowd training their eyes on the 1500-metre start at the back of the course will still have wondered if Kementari, with his vast potential, might be good enough to match it with one of the best ever, and thwart her world record bid.
The gates opened, and long-shot mare Invincible Gem took up the running. With no pace on, Bowman was content to settle last of the six, one off the fence, trailing Kementari and Brenton Avdulla, as Happy Clapper and Blake Shinn stalked the leader. The speed quickened past the 800. Bowman let Winx slide up three-wide until she was nosing Kementari’s rump, the three-year-old no doubt hearing her coming from her distinctively loud breathing.
An engrossing run home was in prospect, but as the business end of the race unfolded, Kementari fell victim to bad luck. When Winx pushed past him rounding the home turn, the colt became pocketed behind Happy Clapper, and was unable to build momentum for some 200 metres of the straight until getting clear late. But while Kementari’s bad fortune might have cost him second place, Winx was moving forward in her familiar overwhelming way.
Invincible Gem had run a cheeky race, still leading at the 250, with Happy Clapper wearing her down. But, pushed out under hands-and-heels riding from Bowman, Winx was storming towards the lead, and a new world record.
As the packed crowd erupted, the mare collared the gallant Happy Clapper and the tiring Invincible Gem at the 150. Given one flick of the whip, but still well below top gear, she continued to comfortably hold the gelding in the run to the line. She won by almost a length, with Kementari three-quarters of a length further back, completing yet another page in her astounding career.
It took John Henry seven and a half years to win his sixteen Group 1s, from eighty-three starts, at a time when horses could stand up to more racing than their more finely bred present-day descendants. Winx had beaten his record in a little less than four years of racing, from just thirty-four starts.
Emerging from his sanctuary, an emotional Waller spoke like a proud father. ‘It’s pretty special, but I try not to get too caught up in all the talk of records,’ he said. ‘But like everybody else who is a racing or sporting tragic, I’m pretty proud of her.
‘I knew she was going for a world record today, but in the build-up to the race I tried not to think about it. She is great for the sport and these records are something we can look back on with pride after her career is over.’5
Despite Winx remaining the toast of the turf world, that build-up, and the fear of an unconscionable failure, was growing no easier for Waller to stomach.
‘It’s like you’re playing for the All Blacks and you’re about to get dropped,’ he said in his native New Zealand-ese. ‘It’s a sick feeling in your guts every time she goes around.
‘The intensity is just unexplainable. I don’t know why, or if it is just me. You enjoy the “after” part of the race, crossing the line. You have that sense of responsibility not to go crazy and make sure you are fully respecting your competition and where she is at in her career. Three weeks between runs is quite good, but the intensity in that last week becomes sickening if you think about it too much.’6
Peter Tighe echoed Waller after what was a slightly peculiar setting of a world record, in that it brought more relief than jubilation.
‘It’s much more of a relief now,’ he said. ‘The old adage is with every win, you get closer to a loss. And you feel that. She was great again today, but it just gets harder.’7
Bowman was similarly in awe of his mare, the first three-time winner of the Ryder Stakes, who’d now also equalled Black Caviar’s world record of twenty-four straight black-type wins.
‘Happy Clapper is a supreme athlete, but, look, this mare is just better than them,’ he said. ‘I have so much confidence in her, she gave me such a thrilling feeling as she did everyone watching here today.
‘I could feel the crowd erupt as we went to the front at the 200, and a world record — what a special, special horse she is and I’m just so grateful to be her jockey.’
Bowman was about to partner Waller’s D’argento to Group 1 success in the following race, the Rosehill Guineas, though the jockey and trainer would miss out again in their attempt at a first Golden Slipper, with Performer on his best behaviour but coming in fourteenth. Still, the pair — and thousands of racegoers — left the course that day on another ‘Winx high’.
It had been 1077 days since the wonder mare’s winning streak had begun, three weeks short of three years since she’d last been beaten. With twenty-four victories in a row, there was essentially just one more massive historical marker left. She’d be out to reach it in her next start.