Best Australian Racing Stories (6 page)

The Hawk raced until he was 13 years old and successfully ‘raided' the lucrative Australian carnivals as a five- and six-year-old, winning the Hill Stakes, All-Aged Stakes, Futurity Stakes, Lloyd Stakes, Caulfield Stakes, Challenge Stakes and Rawson Stakes, and the St George and Essendon Stakes twice each.

It was in a memorable clash with The Hawk, aged six, in the Ormonde Gold Cup over a mile at Hastings in May 1925, that Gloaming ended his career at the age of nine. The only two other acceptors were scratched, so the two champions were involved in a match race at equal weights, both carrying 9 st 10 lb (62.5 kg).

The Hawk led to the halfway mark and then the two raced head to head until Gloaming pulled away to win by a length. It was his eighth win in succession as a nine-year-old.

Gloaming lived out his days on his owner's property near Canterbury and was buried there—at a place now called Gloaming's Hill—when he died in 1932. In one of those ‘spooky coincidences' his trainer Dick Mason died the following week, and his owner, George Greenwood, several weeks later.

Eurythmic (foaled 1916)

While Desert Gold and Gloaming had ‘attacked' the rich racing carnivals of Sydney and Melbourne from the east, the great champion Eurythmic made his attack from the west. Many old-timers still believe he is the best horse to ever be trained and owned in Western Australia, although Fred Kearsley, trainer of the great Northerly, would probably disagree.

Eurythmic was bred at the Camyr Allyn Stud at Scone in New South Wales, and purchased as a yearling by Mr Lee-Steere, chairman of the West Australian Turf Club. His sire was the imported stallion Eudorus, a great-grandson of St Simon, and his dam was the Australian-bred mare Bob Cherry. Bob Cherry was a daughter of Bobadil, the champion three-year-old of his day and a grandson of St Simon. The mare was also a grand-daughter of Wallace on her dam side, and had Musket on both sides of her pedigree.

No doubt the presence of St Simon, Musket and Carbine in Eurythmic's pedigree was a big factor in Mr Lee-Steere's decision not only to purchase the horse to race in Western Australia, but also to leave him ungelded. Eurythmic was to prove a remarkable champion, winning 31 of his 47 starts and being placed a further ten times. He also became the first horse to pass the stake-winning record set by his great-great-grandfather, Carbine.

Sadly, Eurythmic failed to pass on his ability or that of his ancestors when retired to stud. On the racetrack, however, he was a champion of the highest order, being unplaced only six times, two of which were in the Melbourne Cup when he finished a gallant fourth at his first attempt and broke down at his second.

In an odd way Mr Lee-Steere's plan backfired. He purchased the colt to race in his home state of Western Australia. Eurythmic was so good, however, that he ran out of competition in the west and had to be brought back east to fulfil his potential.

Trained by John Kelly, Eurythmic won ten of his 14 starts in Western Australia, including the WATC Derby, St Leger, Perth Cup and Osborne Stakes. He was then sent back east, to be trained by Jack Holt in Melbourne.

Little attention was paid to the horse at first by Melbourne racing men, who considered Western Australian racing well below par. Eurythmic slipped under the radar and won the Memsie Stakes at 20 to 1. By the time he had easily won the October Stakes and Caulfield Stakes, however, it was a different matter and he was sent out, as the shortest-priced favourite ever, at 6 to 4, to win the Caulfield Cup. He then won the Melbourne Stakes before finishing fourth in the Melbourne Cup, behind Poitrel.

He then won eight races in a row, starting with the CB Fisher Plate, in which he defeated Melbourne Cup winner Poitrel. His wins in Sydney included the Autumn Stakes, Cumberland Stakes and Sydney Cup, carrying a massive 9 st 8 lb (61 kg), and his champion status was confirmed when the VRC handicapper gave him 10 st 5 lb (66.5 kg) for the 1921 Melbourne Cup. This was the same weight carried to victory in 1890 by his illustrious forebear, the mighty Carbine.

Eurythmic's victories since coming east had been so emphatic and impressive that he was sent out as 5 to 1 favourite for the Cup, despite having to equal a weight-carrying record to win the big race.

In racing there are days when your luck simply runs out, and it is doubly unfortunate if that day happens to be Melbourne Cup Day, as it was for the horse many called ‘the best from the West'.

Eurythmic's troubles began at the start when a strand of wire from the starting barrier caught his mouth, causing him to miss the start. Even so, he was galloping well and cruising into the race at the half-mile mark when he suffered severe interference, causing him to pull a muscle in his pastern. The champion limped home in last place as the three-year-old filly, Sister Olive, whose only other win had been as a two-year-old, led the field home to become only the fourth of her sex to win the mighty race in its 60-year history.

Eurythmic's jockey, W. McLachlan, always swore the horse would have won that day. When the interference occured McLachlan said that Eurythmic was ‘only cantering, and could have gone to the front at any time'.

While this claim can be dismissed as mere speculation, there is no doubting Eurythmic's ability to carry weight and to stay. His win in the Sydney Cup is regarded as his greatest ever achievement, and he returned to racing in the autumn of 1922 and carried a massive 10 st 7 lb (67 kg) to victory in the Futurity Stakes. So who is to say that he might not have equalled Carbine's record that day, had his luck not run out?

Eurythmic's record speaks for itself. He won quality races against great horses, including the Caulfield Stakes three years in a row, before retiring to stud aged six. He was, indeed, ‘the best from the West'.

Heroic (foaled 1921)

The mid-1920s was an age of great stayers. There were champions like Gloaming, Windbag, Spearfelt, The Hawk and Manfred racing over distance, as well as good horses like Lilypond, Pilliewinkle, Purser and the tough old stayer David.

These last two horses were part of the supporting cast in the curtain raiser to this great era. It began at the Sydney Autumn Carnival, Easter 1923, the day that David won the Sydney Cup.

The final race that day was the Highweight Handicap and one of the runners was the Melbourne horse Purser. The well-named gelding, by Sea Prince out of Paper Money, had won the Moonee Valley Cup and the Warrnambool Cup and had twice been placed in the Caulfield Cup. His chances at Randwick that day, however, seemed rather forlorn. In a field of 29 runners he had to carry the huge top weight of 11 st 3 lb (71 kg), his best days appeared to be behind him and he had not won a race for over six months.

His trainer, Cecil Godby, and his big-betting owner, Jack Corteen, knew better and the betting ring was hammered in a well-planned coup as Purser was backed in from 20 to 1 to 5 to 1 within seconds of betting opening on the race. He won by a length and a half.

The Easter Yearling Sales began the following day at Inglis Sale-yards and the money won by Corteen the previous day was used to purchase a chestnut colt from the second crop of the imported stallion Valais, out of imported mare Chersonese.

Valais raced only seven times for a win in the Windsor Stakes and two placings in top-class races in England, but he carried the blood of Bend Or on both sides of his pedigree.

The Bend Or bloodline was the most popular and successful in the world at that time, producing stallions which topped the sires lists in Britain, France, USA and Australia. In fact there was so much of the bloodline available in Britain that the Moses brothers, of Arrowfield Stud, had been able to purchase Valais for 2000 guineas after he had stood for one season in England. They also purchased Chersonese, who had the Bend Or bloodline through her grandsire Cyllene, who was also the grandsire of Valais.

This close in-breeding to Bend Or produced the colt that Corteen and Godby were so keen to purchase. They were cashed up and kept bidding until the colt was knocked down to them for 1800 guineas, the highest price paid at the sale. They named him Heroic.

Few horses in turf history have had a more sensational career than Heroic. The powerful chestnut was rarely out of the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

A docile animal at home, he was a barrier rogue with shocking manners on the racetrack. At two years of age he overcame a nasty eye infection which almost ended his career before it began by threatening to permanently blind him. The problem was solved by veterinary persistence and he won the Breeder's Plate easily at his first start and, in spite of his shocking performances at the barrier, won six of ten starts to establish a new stakes-winning record for a two-year-old in Australia. In doing so Heroic humped weights that are unimaginable for a two-year-old today. In carrying 10 st 2 lb (64.5 kg) to victory in the Alma Stakes at Caulfield, he set a weight-carrying record for a two-year-old, which was not broken until 1954. He finished off 1924—his first season—by winning the AJC Champagne Stakes carrying 9 st 6 lb (60 kg).

Heroic began his three-year-old season in Sydney in typical fashion by putting on a shocking display at the barrier and pulling throughout to run ninth, as favourite, in the Warwick Stakes.

As a Melbourne horse he was soundly booed and jeered that day by Sydney punters. A week later, however, many of those same racegoers happily cheered him, as the ‘local horse', when he defeated the New Zealand champion Gloaming over 9 furlongs in the Chelmsford Stakes at Randwick.

Gloaming had been beating Australia's best for years and the parochial Aussie racegoers took Heroic to their hearts immediately when he broke the race record in defeating the New Zealand owned and trained champion.

Heroic's finest moment and one of his worst displays of bad manners occurred in the same race, the AJC Derby of 1924. The Derby was then run in the spring and Heroic started raging favourite at 10 to 9. The only two others considered to have any hope were the great stayer Spearfelt and the Rosehill Guineas winner with the delightfully politically incorrect name of Nigger Minstrel.

As Sydney racegoers know, the Derby starts in the straight at Randwick, where the leger enclosure, now long gone, was once filled with massive, noisy crowds. In 1924 the crowd was huge and it upset Heroic, who bucked and kicked as his long-suffering jockey, Hughie Cairns, attempted to get him into line behind the barrier wires.

When the barrier went up Heroic buckjumped and headed to the outside fence. Cairns attempted to straighten him and take him to the inside rail, but the strong-willed chestnut kept running out. The result was that the field raced away around the first turn as the Derby favourite zigzagged down the famous Randwick straight in a display more reminiscent of a Keystone Cops comedy sequence than a classic thoroughbred race.

In an oddly run race the field travelled at snail's pace behind a runaway leader, Sir Dighlock. Heroic, many lengths last at the mile, was able to sustain a huge run into second place at the half-mile, 20 lengths behind the tearaway leader.

The famous rise at the top of the Randwick straight took care of Sir Dighlock, who quickly compounded when Heroic raced past him. The two other fancied runners then attacked the champion chestnut, who gallantly held them off to win by a head from Nigger Minstrel, with Spearfelt another head away in third place.

Heroic was then rushed home to Melbourne for a crack at the VRC Derby and, only a week after his truly heroic victory in the AJC Derby, started favourite at 6 to 4 on a bog track in the Caulfield Guineas.

Once again the barrier rogue put on a display of bad manners, digging in his hooves and refusing to go into line until the clerk of the course cracked a stockwhip at his rump. He dwelt at the start when the barrier went up, but raced around the field to win the mile race by 3 lengths being eased up.

Heroic once again made the headlines when he was barred from running in the VRC Derby of 1924.

His owner, Jack Corteen, raced all his other horses in partnership with owner George Tye. The two owners had combined their resources and stables and had their horses all trained by Cecil Godby at his private training establishment at Alandale, out of Melbourne.

After the great betting plunge that enabled Corteen to buy Heroic at a record price, the old stayer Purser had revitalised his career to win the AJC Winter Stakes in 1923 and the All-Aged Stakes in 1924. He then returned to Melbourne and was entered for the Caulfield Cup, along with another very good horse owned by Corteen–Tye, named The Monk.

It was given out that The Monk would run in the Caulfield Cup and Purser, an eight-year-old who had been given 9 st 5 lb (59.5 kg) for the race, would not. Purser ran very poorly in the Coongy Handicap. Although Hughie Cairns claimed he had been hit in the face by a clod, the horse only plodded in to finish 11th, and he would have to set a weight-carrying record to win the Caulfield Cup.

Both horses were accepted for the Caulfield Cup, however, and it wasn't until after 2 p.m. on race day that The Monk was a late scratching and Purser, to be ridden by Gloaming's regular jockey George Young, was sensationally backed in from 50 to 1 to 15 to 1. The old horse, who carried St Simon blood close up on both sides of his pedigree, was up to the task and won easily, setting a new weight-carrying record for the famous mile and a half race.

A hostile demonstration after the race was followed by an enquiry the following week and the shock announcement that owners Tye and Corteen, trainer Godby and jockey Cairns, who had ridden Purser in the Coongy but not in the Caulfield Cup, were all banned from racing for a year.

This meant that all horses owned by Tye and Corteen were also banned. Heroic, the VRC Derby favourite, was thus unable to start in the Derby or the Melbourne Cup and bookmakers pocketed many, many thousands of pounds.

More sensations were to follow. Appeals were heard and dismissed, Heroic was spelled, and then sold to Corteen's good friend Martin Wenke for 14,000 guineas. The VRC questioned both men and refused to accept that the sale was legitimate, and Heroic was then sold at a public auction and knocked down for the record price of 16,000 guineas.