Last Saturday saw the end of the phenomenal Maher-Eustace training partnership of the last eight years.
Dave Eustace is off to Hong Kong to train. In their time together they have won Melbourne and Caulfield Cups plus a Cox Plate. Good luck to both of them in the future. Appropriately they have gone off with a bang, with the Glory Daze win at Randwick.
Respecting all the different views on Australia Day, it’s an iconic day of racing. Hanging Rock and Kilcoy meetings, it doesn’t get any better, as Aussie as it gets. Lots of beers and two-up.
It always draws good crowds and decent betting holds as people switch between racing, tennis and cricket. I wonder how many remember who won the next day. Long may it continue.
One for the black book: Franz Joseph. It’s now two from two. Won very well on Australia Day. By Snitzel trained by Gerald Ryan and Sterling Alexiou – say no more. Stick with him. He is a good’un.
If you took the old Coat Tugger’s leg up a few weeks back on the Australian jockeys riding at New Zealand’s big money day at Ellerslie on Saturday, you would have filled up your boots. James McDonald rode a double while Mark Zahra and Blake Shinn completed the quinella in those two races. Got to be patient in this game.
However, thank goodness it’s only 10 days until good class racing resumes at Caulfield with the Blue Diamond Preludes and the Rubiton Stakes. While its only been three months since the 2023 Spring Carnival finished, it seems like an eternity. There is only so much cricket and tennis an old bloke can
watch.
I’m starting to think that the current crop of Melbourne three-year-olds might just be a stellar version. Griff, Veight, Steparty, King Colorado, Brave Mead and Southport Tycoon are top shelf in my book. Brave Mead, Veight and Steparty all raced very well on Friday night at the Valley and Caulfield on Saturday. I reckon they have the drop on the Sydney three-year-old sprinting/miler crop and can see them mixing it with the older group horses this autumn.
Patience is a virtue with stallions too. Cable Bay, an Irish-bred son of Invincible Spirit is producing Metropolitan winner after winner but got choofed off to stand in India after a perceived slow start to his stallion career in Australia. They would love him back now.
The same goes for Golden Slipper producer in his first season, Sidestep, now in Morocco. Ditto Epaulette and Authorized standing in Turkey. They just needed time. Tough game, breeding.
With training fees so high in Sydney and Melbourne and, to an extent Brisbane, it’s no wonder that the Sport of Kings is just that – billionaires, multi-millionaires and micro-shareholders.
I’ve got the good oil from family connections that a neddy having two starts a month with a top Sydney or Melbourne trainers will cost you $6k a month, while Brisbane is pushing the high $4ks. Yes prizemoney in town is amazing, but you have to win in town once a year to cover your training fees, and not many do that.
The old Coat Tugger is blown away by the number of high quality on-line horse racing sites currently available for racing enthusiasts. It’s a Melbourne Cup field, with Racing.com and Racenet the top two in my book. The first site is free with the latter subscription-based. A lot of the sites are linked to or
underwritten by the big corporate bookmakers. Every bit of racing information you could wish for is displayed – form guide, sectionals, video, head-to-head racing. Plus, they provide a lot of common interest stories on horses, jockeys and trainers.
In terms of the Queensland jockeys’ premiership, it’s Jimmy Orman first and daylight second. At the exact halfway mark, Orman has ridden 66.5 winners at a strike rate of an amazing 24 per cent. His place rate is a tick under 50 per cent. When you’re hot, you’re hot.
There was good news during the week at Eagle Farm, from both Racing Queensland and the Brisbane Racing Club, that the John Power Stand will be torn down and replaced. It’s 50 years old, and according to those who have the say, is substandard and needs to go. As a regular at all the big tracks,
Eagle Farm rates a long last to Flemington, Caulfield, Rosehill and Randwick. No timetable yet. I guess everything has a use-by date, however at what point do we consider that architecture like people can be quirky, interesting and still of value, and sometimes not everything sparky and new doesn’t mean better?
In saying that, I’ve been quietly watching during my regular visits over the last decade and have seen the Racecourse Road Village and now three big residential towers go up, thinking there must be plenty of bikkies in the BRC bikkie tin, so time to spend some on faithful patrons. May it be well considered and well spent, to outlast the 50 year timetable the John Power Stand has had.
There was a knock at Paddy’s door and as he opened it, Mick was standing there in his birthday suit with a gift under his arm. “Gees!’, yelled Paddy, blocking his eyes and yelling behind him to his long suffering wife, “Don’t come out, Mick has lost it.” “Mick what on earth yer be doin starkers? Come inside and I will wrap a towel around yer!”. “Well”, said Mick, “you know that young couple up the street, the ones havin’ the baby? Well I get on really well with ‘em.” ”How well?” asked Paddy, “So well they invited me to a party”, smiled Mick. Paddy’s eyes started to pop out of his head a wee
bit. “Well”, replied Mick, “I showed up with me gift, wifey opened the door and screamed and fainted, and the man of the house came out. He screamed but didn’t faint, and asked why I had no clothes on and slammed the door! Paddy, I don’t understand, they said it was a gender reveal party”.
