Chapter 15

Blood doesn’t lie

I return to Melbourne several weeks later, timing my visit with the height of the famous Spring Racing carnival and the city alive with excitement. This is the one week of the year when all Melburnians allow themselves to be taken up with thoroughbreds, invigorated by their beauty and courage, swept away by the excitement of the turf.

To make it even more of a celebration, trainer Bart Cummings, national living treasure, is having an absolute blinder of a season, winning many of the major races of the carnival. This includes last year’s Melbourne Cup winner Viewed running away with the Caulfield Cup, and Bart’s stunning three-year-old colt So You Think leading all the way to win the WS Cox Plate, Australasia’s weight-for-age championship. Who knows what else The Master is capable of, given there are still two weeks of elite racing to go.

When I arrive at Cranbourne Training track on Saturday morning, it is Victoria Derby Day and I expect to feel a palpable pulse of anticipation even if it is just before 6.30 am. As I drive in slowly along the back-stretch of the course, I notice a horse lying down on the track, very still, with one of two handlers kneeling by the horse’s side, the other standing behind them.

Something has obviously gone terribly wrong, a sad reminder of all that can happen on a racecourse, at any time of day. Even on a big day like this. The usually busy thoroughfare is also unusually quiet as I walk towards Robbie Griffiths’ tie-up stalls; it is quickly apparent not all his horses have arrived for their work yet. Harry’s certainly nowhere to be found, so I wander up to the observation tower, where Robbie and Robert are sitting at the long bench along the window, binoculars pressed to their eyes.

‘Morning,’ the trainer says eventually, without looking round. ‘Things are a bit backed up today,’ he says, putting his glasses down.

‘A little filly broke her leg out there about an hour ago, and they’ve just put her down. So we’re a bit behind. Don’t think your boy’s even here yet.’

Silence descends again, as we all think of the youngster who has just lost her life doing what she was bred to do, as well as the obvious, unspoken point. It could have been any one of the horses out on the training track this morning. It could have been one of Robbie’s. I know better than to ask what happened because until the vet has a close look at the filly’s leg to try to determine why it broke, there’s no way of knowing what exactly went so horribly wrong. She may have put a hoof in a pot-hole on the track. She may have had a weakness in a leg or shoulder no one picked up before she went out for a gallop—for as strong and fast as they are, horses can be fragile beauties.

Robert is still concentrating on what is actually happening around the track itself and Robbie’s not quite his usual welcoming self; he is pale and somewhat peaky, obviously backing up from a late night out. Ten minutes later, he tells me Harry has just arrived on course.

‘Harry,’ he says, his grin resurfacing, ‘is in the building!’

I walk back to the stalls and sure enough, there he is—an even bigger, sturdier version of the horse I waved off the farm some 18 months earlier. I introduce myself to trainer Enver Jusufovic—known simply as ‘EJ’—and we walk up to the new, improved gelding we used to call Newsboy. I’m amused to see him grab one of the chains linked to either side of his halter, and pin his ears back in a very good impression of a moody racehorse.

‘Don’t worry,’ says EJ. ‘That’s just him, that’s what he’s like in the mornings.’

I laugh and step towards the big bay trying so hard to look fierce.

‘Is it now?’ I ask. And the ears flick forward. ‘Ah well, I guess that means no sweeties …’

Within seconds, the real Harry reappears and his nose thrusts out in search of a treat.

‘You two know each other, I see,’ says EJ. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’

So I stand with five-year-old Harry, waiting for him to be saddled and jockey Luke Currie legged up for his early morning hit-out. Harry looks different; taller again, stronger through his shoulders and chest, more muscled-up and round in the rump. And his attitude is vastly changed, much more professional and ‘on the toe’. Clearly this is the way our trainer likes his horses.

Harry is now fully grown and close to the prime of his racing life. As he heads onto the track, tail tied in a knot to keep it above the wet surface, he is obviously keen to get going and I rejoin the training team in the tower to watch as he trots around the sand circle right in front of us, very alert, warming up.

‘He’s showing off for Mum,’ says Robbie.

‘Oh no,’ Robert interjects. ‘That’s just him now.’

A few minutes later, the horse is rolling along the back of the course, and the stopwatch is on as he passes the 400-metre mark and really stretches out to the 800-metre mark, which is acting as the finishing line this morning. Time: 23.75 overall, 11.07 for the final furlong, or 200 metres.

That is good work.

‘Especially as we had 17 mils of rain last night, so even the Viscoride (dirt) track is a bit soggy,’ says Robert. ‘He’s going well.’

Their attention turns to another of their smaller charges going through the same pattern.

‘Recognise her?’ asks Robbie. ‘It’s the little God’s Own filly you liked so much.’

And sure enough, the daughter of Espiare swings into the main part of her fast work.

‘We didn’t send her out with Harry because he would have gone too fast for her at this stage of things,’ the trainer explains. ‘But she’s going really well.’

She is the only two year old currently in work right now.

Robbie walks out onto the landing at the top of the stairs and leans over to talk to his two jockeys as they bring the two stable mates off the track.

‘He’s all business, this bloke,’ Luke Currie tells him, as he and Harry walk past us. ‘He wanted to really get going, but I knew you didn’t want him to have a gut-buster, so I didn’t let him.’

‘How did he feel?’ I venture.

‘Good, strong,’ Currie replies.

We wait for the two year old to return and she looks diminutive compared to our big boy ahead of her.

‘All right, mate?’ Robbie asks the rider.

‘Yeah, good.’

Even so, the filly will be turned out into the paddock within the next month, like most of his youngest charges, even the robust Catbird colt. As we are learning, Robbie is a patient man. This is just as well, because as good and strong as Harry seems on Derby Day morning, within a month he has become one of the stable’s most confounding gallopers.

Like most horses working towards their first start in a racing campaign, he has an unofficial barrier trial at Cranbourne one Tuesday morning, winning the short 800-metre scamper by three lengths. Regular rider Peter Mertens is pleased with how he feels and over the next couple of weeks, the trainer’s email updates are increasingly positive. And so the horse is nominated for yet another 1200-metre maiden at Sale, the big wide provincial course where he ran so well when debuting for the stable several months ago.

The plan to return for another first-up tilt makes sense and everyone involved is upbeat about his chances, not to mention how solid and successful this campaign is going to be. We might not make it to the city, but there is real confidence now that Harry can make his mark around the country courses.

At least he will break his maiden status and work his way through one or two of the next class of race on the calendar. Not only will this be exciting and fun for his owners, and rewarding for the team that has been working so hard to get him to this point, it also means he will pay his way. At around $2500 a month, having a horse in training isn’t cheap. But Harry managed to offset most of this when last in work, and all the signs look good that he will be able to balance the books in a positive way from here on.

On the other hand, as everyone involved with Harry and Rosie is learning, sometimes—just as things seem to be following a properly developed, professional strategy—something unexpected throws it completely out of whack. In Rosie’s case, it was an unlikely inflammation of a knee. In Harry’s case, it is something much harder to pinpoint. On the morning of his planned return bout at Sale, the trainer rings just before 7 am.

‘We’re going to have to scratch him today; he has a slight temperature and his white blood cell count is up.’

To Robbie, this second piece of information is the most significant. As in humans, the readout of a horse’s blood reflects their physical wellbeing and the Griffiths stable relies on pre-race blood tests to give them as much information as possible, in terms of how each potential runner is—quite literally—within themselves.

Up until this morning, every time Harry has raced, his blood count has been normal, consistently so, hardly deviating up or down. So for his white cells suddenly to be in the high range is unusual, and worrying. Something clearly isn’t right. No matter how good he looks, how well he’s been working and the trial he seemed to win on his ear, something is affecting him.

‘He’s not really sick at all,’ the trainer says. ‘He’s just a bit off colour and it’s probably just a summer bug, or some minor infection he’s picked up over the past couple of days, which isn’t surprising, given the changes in the weather we’ve had.’

That is true. Victoria has just endured an extraordinarily hot November week, mixed with torrential rain.

‘We’ll start him on a course of antibiotics and hopefully that will knock whatever it is off in the next few days and he’ll be right to go next week. I know it’s disappointing, but what we don’t want to do is send him out for the first time this preparation and flatten him. We’re going to have a good, long summer with this bloke, so there’s no need to rush him into it when something’s not right.’

Again, this makes commonsense as well as horse sense. It is reasonable to think that the unusual and extreme weather has led to a niggling ailment of some description. What is now in the lap of the (racing) gods is exactly how long it will take to get right. So Robbie backs off the strapping five-year-old gelding to allow him time to recover from whatever it is, lightening his exercise regimen, but keeping him ticking over for his race day return. And over the next couple of weeks, he duly nominates him for three more races, only to scratch him two more times for exactly the same reason.

‘It’s frustrating, especially as on the one hand I’m telling you how good the horse looks and how good he’s going, only to keep pulling him out at the last minute,’ he says. ‘And the blood result isn’t really alarming, the white cell count isn’t dangerously high. But it’s a tool I rely on to tell me how each horse is before they race, because blood doesn’t lie. And Harry’s blood has been ultra-consistent ever since he’s been here. So now that it’s not, we have to pay attention to it and try and get it back to normal.’

Yet, although Harry’s temperature comes back to normal and he is working well again, his white cell count remains high, even after two courses of antibiotics. Robbie nominates him for three different maiden sprints: one at Seymour (where a predicted top temperature of 41 degrees and barrier number 17 make that call an easy one), then another one back at Sale, and the third at Ballarat. But each time, his blood count the day before each race is still higher than usual and he is withdrawn from the three events, frustrating for all concerned.

‘We’re going to change antibiotics and see if that does the trick,’ Robbie says at the start of December, perplexed. ‘I’ve got him in a race at Stony Creek on Saturday that could be the go if he’s right.’

On that morning we wait for word of a fifth consecutive scratching … but no, he is going to the races.

‘His white cells are still higher than usual for him, but they’ve come down a bit in the last few days and quite frankly, we can’t find anything else wrong with him. He’s jumping out of his skin, he’s eating the house down, he’s really pleased me with his work and he was literally dancing on his toes this morning. Two days ago, he actually kicked another horse, so he wants to run,’ Robbie tells me on the morning of the race.

‘We’ve scoped him to see if there’s any mucus or blood in his throat, but that’s clear. While I’m not completely convinced there’s nothing wrong, I just think we have to roll the dice and see what happens. He looks really well and I think he’ll run particularly well today. And if he doesn’t, at least it will bring whatever is wrong to a head.’

The last time Harry went to Stony Creek, of course, he kicked clear at the top of the home straight only to be run down after being run into by The Phoenician. So it is with a heavier heart than usual that I return to the same pub in Braidwood where I watched that race a couple of months ago in winter, Robbie’s words from weeks earlier echoing in my mind.

‘Blood doesn’t lie.’

Days before, I had outlined our predicament to another horseman, an equine specialist by trade, who wholeheartedly agreed with that maxim.

‘He’s right. It doesn’t, it’s as simple as that,’ he said. ‘The horse might look perfectly fine and, for all intents and purposes, be doing everything right. But if the blood’s off, something else is too.’

And yet here we are, ready to jump at Stony Creek. As I sit on a tall stool in the empty back bar, gazing up at the big screen, my heart sinks further as I watch jockey Danny Brereton guide the brown horse in the blinkers around the field to reach the leaders with apparent ease. From where I sit some 800 kilometres away, Harry seems to be carrying his head higher than he normally does and, though not exactly fighting Danny, isn’t his usual calm, relaxed self.

Then again, as the camera pulls back to capture the field entering the home stretch front on, he still seems to be running easily enough, poised to just kick away after he draws level with the leader, and just go whoosh. But suddenly, his acceleration stops and those running on his left side skip away. He labours on, but the doggedness he showed last campaign isn’t there.

The blood isn’t lying, I think, waiting for my co-owners to call. But no one rings to ask what happened; they obviously saw it for themselves and don’t wish to discuss it. And what is there to say? The news is in and it isn’t good. Harry has a problem.

‘At least we know now,’ says Deane Lester, who was uncharacteristically confident about how the horse would go 10 minutes before the race. ‘That performance was a good six lengths below what we know he’s capable of. As we’ve said before, he’s not Might and Power, but he’s a better horse than that. So we know for sure now there’s something bothering him.’

True. But what, exactly?

‘Let me know what Robbie reckons,’ co-owner Adam texts me, 15 minutes after the race.

Not knowing the answer to that one question means I spend the next few hours worrying about all the (truly horrible) things that could be wrong until the trainer finally rings. He has had an otherwise highly successful, busy 24 hours of racing, with three runners at the main Victorian meeting at Caulfield this afternoon and scoring a winning double there—one at the juicy odds of 40-1—four others at Stony Creek, including one winner, and all this after three other horses completed their tasks at Moonee Valley the night before, for a win and a third placing.

Robbie Griffiths has had a top time in town.

‘The ponies have been good today,’ he admits, with a chuckle, when he calls later that afternoon.

‘Not all of them,’ I feel compelled to point out.

‘No, on the face of it, Harry the Pony was disappointing. He ran well below my expectations. He was ridden beautifully, and Danny was disappointed, because I told him I thought he’d go so much better than what he did. But in saying that, I’m not giving up just yet, even though that’s his worst run for me.

‘Although he’s come into this campaign really well, for the past three weeks I’ve been having these negative discussions about him because his blood just hasn’t been right and we’ve had to scratch him three times before today.

‘That never happened last time around and so I’m prepared to forgive him today, because I think there’s something bothering him I’m still not seeing.’

I ask how Harry has pulled up after the race.

‘He’s pulled up well, almost too well; maybe he was having a lend of me and wasn’t trying out there, but that would only be because he’s not 100 per cent. Or maybe because he was so fresh going into the race because I’ve backed off him in track work, he wasn’t quite fit enough to finish it off. Whatever it is, it’s my job to get to the bottom of it.’

Just before he hangs up, the trainer offers one final factor that could have had an impact on Harry’s lacklustre effort. Light rain fell at Stony Creek before the first race, which meant that, by the second, the track surface was slippery without being really rain-affected. ‘That’s the one kind of surface we know he doesn’t like,’ Robbie says. ‘Remember he ran on something like that at Pakenham last time in and didn’t go well then either. But that’s a piss weak excuse, really piss weak, and I’m not even going to use it.’

I ask Robbie if we should we just tip him into the paddock again for a short spell.

‘No, I think we’ll just aim for another race in two weeks’ time and see what happens. If anything’s really wrong, if he has a lingering infection or bug, it should come to the fore now and then we can deal with it. If not, I’ll just step the work up again and see where that takes us. But I’m not giving up on him just yet.’

A patient trainer, indeed.

A couple of days later, the co-owners and I get an email from the stable, with an audio message from Robbie attached saying pretty much the same thing, the extra piece being added to this jigsaw the fact that he’s entered Harry in another maiden at Ballarat on Thursday, 24 December 2009. Christmas Eve.

Three weeks away.

Given the many race meetings in between, this is clearly designed to give Harry maximum time to recover from whatever ails him and provide Robbie the window to identify it, without throwing away the fitness level of an athlete who has been back in work for four months. This, in itself, is a sobering thought.

Harry certainly isn’t paying his way this time round. To be fair, his career earnings are hovering over $14,000 now and most of that has rolled in during his past six months in Victoria. Yet, overall, we have spent twice as much on training fees in Harry’s two-year career. And herein lies the trap, and the temptation, of racehorse ownership.

As these figures quickly add up, and a horse isn’t performing well, there is one nagging question that hovers just around the edges of every conversation owners have about that horse: is it time to give it up?

At the same time you remember that there is always good prize money to be won if the horse can just find their form again, and that’s precisely what keeps most owners going through the bleakest of times. A humble maiden in the country usually holds a purse of between $9000 and $12,000, and most of that goes to the winner. So all might not be lost! Even a second prize of $2700 can help keep the show on the road a little longer.

As a thoroughbred graduates through his or her classes, the prize pool—like the competition, itself—gets stronger. And if you can make it to a race in the city and run a place, let alone win, a real profit margin might start to appear. Yet, for most horses, no matter their breeding, no matter how much they did or didn’t cost in the sale ring as yearlings, this doesn’t happen.

In Australia, a well-worn statistic maintains that only 18 per cent of horses win a race during the course of their career. Who knows what the odds are about stepping into the lucrative big time. So we really are at the proverbial fork in the road with News Just In.

If he can recapture the promise of his easy barrier trial triumph earlier in his preparation and win his maiden on Christmas Eve, it will make sense to keep going. If he doesn’t and Robbie and his team really can’t solve this particular equine riddle, it’s probably time for Harry to retire.

I start to think about what he can do next if we do have to take this course of action. Maybe he could become a police horse, or perhaps an equestrian mount? Friends try to be reassuring. They point out that some of Australia’s very best dressage riders are always on the look out for athletic, good-looking thoroughbreds who don’t make the grade on the track.

I outline this in an email to my co-owners and take their complete lack of response as mutual agreement. Much as I would appreciate their input at this stage, I sense they are even more at a loss than I am to know what to think, let alone to say.

I realise they are probably all relying on me, as managing owner, to start planning Harry’s post-track future, because his racing days seem so numbered. Most of us know that we head to the races with Harry on a wing and a prayer. His official record now reads: 19 starts for four seconds, two thirds and a fourth. We have yet to even be nominated for a city meeting, let alone run in town, yet our trainer remains upbeat about Harry’s chances. Who knew life with horses could be so complex?

But as if to prove at least one of the clichés about racing rings true, the next day we get another email from Robbie with another audio message attached, this one about Rosie.

The trainer says she has grown and strengthened nicely during her long spell and he has a plan for our filly with the odd, degenerative bone in her left knee. Rosie will be given a light preparation of four to six weeks to help her continue to grow and mature physically without placing too much pressure on the suspect knee.

This will also ensure she keeps developing mentally—and without putting too fine a point on it, will keep her weight in check. For a young horse, losing unwanted kilos at the start of even a basic training campaign can be difficult and take too much time. So even in the paddock, these youngsters’ size and shape are watched carefully.

From the sound of things, while Rosie is getting bigger, she isn’t too big in height or too round. Better yet, her near side knee seems fine. She is right where she should be, in other words, and the Griffiths team is happy.

Her owners, too, are quietly appreciative of this positive turn of events, and patiently wait for their horse to make her first official race day appearance. No one is sure how long this will take now, as so much depends on the filly’s ability to stand up to the physical and mental test of track work and stable life. If all continues to go well, a trial might well be on the cards this time round; even if she’s tipped back out into the paddock after Christmas, she could progress to a trial early in the New Year. After all, the vet with the scary X-rays predicted she might actually race in March, though that looks highly unlikely now. And as disappointing as this is, I know enough about racing’s vagaries now to appreciate the fact Rosie’s still in the game. Talk about the highs and lows of racing! More worrying for me is the financial reality that is setting in with both horses back in work. With Harry in the stable for a couple of months and nothing to show for it in terms of prize money, the safety buffer I had is gone, and things are tight.

I realise that the day many said would come may have arrived. From the minute I bought Poetic Waters, friends, colleagues, taxi drivers, distant family members—most of whom have never had anything to do with horses—have warned that owning them is a quick trip on a highway to hell. Financial ruin at the very least.

Horses, they swear, are destined to fail, a living, breathing investment that eats money. To some degree, there is truth to this. If owning racehorses was a sure way to make money, everyone would have one. The trick, I see with the sudden illumination that comes at times of high dudgeon, is not to own too much of a horse. A 5 or 10 per cent share, for instance, is probably not going to lead to the poorhouse for anyone gainfully employed, while 70 per cent of a horse like Harry just might. Not to mention the 50 per cent I retain of Rosie.

As Deane Lester points out in one of our long meandering conversations about racing, ‘that’s 120 per cent of horse’. One of them has got to get serious and start paying his way again. So a week after his dismal performance at Stony Creek, I ring Harry’s trainer to see how he has been doing and make very clear that—while I still have faith in his ability to get to the bottom of this particular equine puzzle—if the big, boofy five year old doesn’t turn it around at his next start, he might be looking for a new career.

Hard as it is to say, and whatever that career might be, I simply can’t continue to pay for two horses in training if neither is contributing to the cause. Robbie, being Robbie, agrees. But I detect a steely resolve creeping into his voice. The trouble with Harry, it seems, is that no one wants to give up on him, least of all his trainer.

This means I spend the next two weeks worrying, waking at 4 am some mornings to ponder what will become of the horse I originally bred to sell four years ago, who now finds himself poised at the same precipice that every moderately talented thoroughbred comes to in their career: to be a racehorse, or not.

If he can jump it and reach the other side, his life as a galloper will continue. If he falls short, who knows where he will end up? He can’t stay at Robbie’s. No trainer wants a horse without potential. There is simply no point to it and it just drags their all-important strike-rate (winners-to-runners ratio) down, which affects their professional ranking. And it goes without saying that no owner wants to keep paying for a horse that can’t win. All bets on Harry might soon be off.

Then, a week before his next start in (yet another) 1200-metre maiden at Ballarat, the word from the stable foreman is more positive. Harry’s work is sharper and while his white cell count is still higher than it was during winter, the vet can’t find anything wrong with him at all and believes he could well just be a thoroughbred who idles higher in the warmer months. This doesn’t really explain his most recent performance, the awful racetrack fade at Stony Creek. The consensus on that run is that something else could have been bothering him that day. As our trainer keeps saying, it would be really helpful if horses could tell us how they were feeling.

On the positive side is the fast work he does four days before the race on Christmas Eve, which the stable describes as outstanding. A more cogent description could be eye-opening. The horse has lifted a cog in his track gallop, and this should have him primed to run well at Ballarat.

There is more good news about Rosie too.

‘She’s just doing some mild pace work, nothing too serious,’ Robbie tells us by email. ‘As I’ve mentioned in the previous update, I just want to stimulate the system enough to keep the growth activity happening and we won’t be putting her under too much pressure this time around. She looks well. Merry Christmas!’

When the day before Christmas dawns, and Ballarat being too far away to drive at this time of year, I make an effort to find a new TAB in which to watch the event, hopeful the change of venue will also change our luck. It is just a two-minute walk away from the sea on the Mornington Peninsula, in case I need to jump in. Five minutes before the start, Robbie sends a good luck phone text. I quickly send one back and ask if he is optimistic today.

‘For a place, yes; it’s too short for him really.’

As soon as they jump, I also realise Harry can’t win from his awkward number 10 barrier as it puts him at too much disadvantage on this track.

Sure enough, jockey Peter Mertens is forced to haul him back to sit second last most of the way, before taking off just before the home turn to chase the two favourites who have kicked away up front. And for the first time in his life, Harry looks jet-propelled as he flies down the middle of the track, a newfound turn of foot making the impossible seem quite possible, if only for an instant, even though the first two horses are too many lengths away for him to catch. He runs a creditable third and looks good in the process. Even before they have pulled up, the phone rings.

‘We’re back in business,’ our trainer says.

‘They went outrageously slow for the first half of the race and then Pete took off on him a bit too early, because he didn’t want to get caught too far back, so he ran out of steam down the straight. But he did really well to come home like that and he showed a great turn of foot to sprint like he did when Pete asked him to go.’

I can hear the relief in his voice as he continues to explain how most horses can only sustain a 300-metre sprint before tiring. And I appreciate that the best thing about the run is not only did he accelerate like a decent horse, but he also fought on for third place, even though he was entitled to be tired and just fold up.

‘If he pulls up like he usually does, I think our next step is over more distance—1400 metres—and we should be right.’

It looks like Harry has just jumped his precipice.

A couple of days later, the trainer’s audio report arrives.

‘I was very pleased with his return to form at Ballarat on Christmas Eve. What I was most pleased about was his turn of speed from the top of the straight to the 200. He hasn’t showed that turn of speed before, and certainly if he applies that in races in the future, he’ll win a lot more than a maiden.

‘The run of the race didn’t suit. They went steady, he drew 10; Peter had to come back to get cover. To do so, he had to give his opponents too big a head start in a slowly run race that suited horses up front. Peter was frustrated, he cracked the “sads” and took off before the corner at the 500, (and) lost a lot of ground getting round the corner.

‘But that’s where I liked his race, that’s where the turn of speed I’m talking about was excellent. Had he waited till he straightened, he still would have been too far back, so either way he was always going to get beaten the way the race was run. But I thought he was encouraging. He’s pulled up well, so we’ll push forward and find a suitable race for him over 1400 metres. I haven’t confirmed one yet, I want to see how he trains. He had a puff after the run so he obviously tried.

‘We’ve changed a few things round in his training which have worked (and) I’m pleased that we’re back on track. I’ll update when I select his next option for him. Cheers.’