The

Eric o’keefe

CUP

The Slattery Media Group140 Harbour Esplanade, Docklands, Victoria, 3008www.slatterymedia.com

Copyright © Eric O’Keefe 2009 www.ericokeefe.comFirst published by The Slattery Media Group 2009 (www.slatterymedia.com)All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means without the prior permission of the copyright owner.Inquiries should be made to the publisher.

National Library of AustraliaCataloguing-in-Publication data

O’Keefe, Eric

The Cup1st ed.ISBN 9780980442014 (pbk.)

1. The Melbourne Cup (horse race). 2. Horse racing – Australia – History. I. Title.

A823.4

Group Publisher and Editor: Geoff Slattery Designer: Karl ChandlerPrinted in Australia by: McPhersons Printing Group

The Slattery Media Group thanks Simon Wincer and The Cup Pty Ltd for their support, and the Oliver Foundation for its support and for permission to reproduce images of Damien Oliver in this publication.

Photography: Copyright as indicatedCover photo: Adam Pretty/Getty Images, with thanks to the Oliver Foundation for permission to use images of Damien Oliver.Back cover photo: Bruno Cannatelli

Foreword by Simon Wincer ......................................................................................................... 9

PART ONE

1 The Irish Wizard ....................................................................................................................15

2 The Sheikh ..................................................................................................................................30

3 The Melbourne Cup ...........................................................................................................49

4 The Cups King .........................................................................................................................66

5 A Vintage Performance .....................................................................................................74

6 The World Comes Calling ..............................................................................................86

PART TWO

7 The Dark Horse ..................................................................................................................109

8 The West Australian ........................................................................................................122

9 A Theatrical Streak ...........................................................................................................140

10 The Last Best Hope ..........................................................................................................158

11 Racing Home .........................................................................................................................170

12 Solving the Puzzle ..............................................................................................................179

13 Derby Day ................................................................................................................................192

14 The Boys from the Bush................................................................................................199

15 The Race That Stopped the Nation .....................................................................212

16 Final Ride .................................................................................................................................235

Epilogue .....................................................................................................................................237

APPENDICES

Final Field & Barrier Draw 2002 Melbourne Cup ............................................242

Damien Oliver’s 2002 Melbourne Cup Carnival Results ..............................243

Melbourne Cup Stats ..................................................................................................................244

Cast of Characters .........................................................................................................................245

Notes & Sources .............................................................................................................................248

Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................................250

CONTENTS

To Simon Wincer,

Six Years, Four Continents,

Two Cases of Mount Mary, One Race.

Now that’s a stayer!

“Nowhere in the world have I encountered a festival of people that has such

a magnifi cent appeal to the whole nation. The Cup astonishes me.”

— Mark Twain, describing his experiences

at the 1895 Melbourne Cup

9

THE JOURNEY TO THE CUP

FOREWORD BY SIMON WINCER

On New Year’s Day 2003, a neatly handwritten note arrived on the fax machine: “I have a story idea I wanted to run past you. I am sure you are familiar with the subject matter and would welcome

your thoughts and suggestions.”The intriguing note came from Eric O’Keefe, a Texas journalist I had

met while I was directing the television western Crossfi re Trail. Our fi rst meeting, in 1999, was memorable. Eric had arrived from the stifl ing heat of Dallas to a late September blizzard in Calgary. The weather was so bad I had moved shooting an exterior street scene to a cover set, an interior ship’s cabin. Eric was forced to grab our star, Tom Selleck, between set-ups and convince him to go out into the blizzard to be interviewed and photographed away from the crush of the tiny set. Through Eric’s tenacity a great cover story resulted.

Our paths crossed for the second time on another television western, Monte Walsh. Eric had been sent a preview of the movie and wanted to write an article about it. In our phone interview I realised that Eric had latched on to the essence of a fi lm that dealt with the end of the cowboy era and the coming of wire (fences) and how each cowboy character coped with this reality. Eric just got it, describing scenes, moments, and shots that most people couldn’t articulate. Best of all he appreciated the elements that shone through – story and character.

10

THE CUP

So, when Eric’s New Year’s Day fax arrived, I sat down and took notice. “What did I know about the 2002 Melbourne Cup?” Well, not much. I had been in Los Angeles completing the post-production on Monte Walsh when Damien Oliver had his incredible triumph. The story had been related to Eric by Memo and Mimi Gracida, some American friends who had just returned to the States after visiting Flemington and seeing the race. Like everyone who was there that day they had been reduced to tears by the events that unfolded.

As I started my research I was excited to discover a story that possessed all the ingredients to make a wonderful fi lm. Not only was this true, it was enormously uplifting. It was an emotional journey climaxing in the triumph of the human spirit. Here was a story centred on Australia’s biggest annual event featuring players from every corner of the globe; but at its heart shone an unassuming Aussie hero.

“Yes, Eric, there is a great story here,” I enthused. “I think it would make a wonderful fi lm.” There was a long pause on the other end of the phone line.

“I am interested in writing a book,” he said.“Well, let’s write a screenplay and maybe then you can write the

book!” I responded. So on June 10, 2003, at the Universal Hilton in Los Angeles, Eric and I sat down over breakfast and nutted out the fi rst ideas that were to grow into our screenplay The Cup.

Over the next few months we discussed, debated, argued, disagreed, and agreed as we exchanged emails, phone calls, and voice mails or worked together in my study fi ne-tuning the outline; then drafting early versions of the screenplay. Eric would write a scene, I would edit it and visa versa. Exploring the essential ingredients of the story was a fulfi lling experience. The more we dug into the detail and met the people involved, the more excited we became. Not to mention the fun of visiting Dubai, attending three Melbourne Cups, and the Irish St. Leger at the Curragh.

Six Melbourne Cups later I have readied our screenplay for production (god willing) while Eric has completed his long cherished book. Rich in

11

detail, atmosphere, and emotion, this book chronicles the path to an event that has become forever etched in Australian sporting folklore while capturing one of our most beloved and enduring traditions, the Cup.

Simon Wincer

Yarra Valley, Victoria

June 23, 2009

FOREWORD

PART ONE

15

1

THE IRISH WIZARD

TOWN MOOR is no ordinary racecourse. To label it as such is like calling the Tour de France “a strenuous country ride” or Buckingham Palace “the home of a London family”. Town Moor

is to thoroughbred racing what the barren plains of Marathon are to long distance runners: heroic, historic, defi ning.

The English have journeyed to Doncaster to race at Town Moor since the 1500s, but over the centuries it has become synonymous with one race in particular, England’s oldest Classic, the English St. Leger, and as such the oldest Classic in all thoroughbred racing. More than a decade would pass after John Singleton rode Allabaculia to victory in 1776 in the inaugural St. Leger before Arthur Phillip and the First Fleet would weigh anchor and set sail for Australia. More than a century later, the Royal Train would embark from London’s Victoria Station and deliver Edward VII and his retinue each autumn to Doncaster. On St. Leger Day, His Majesty, like thousands of others, must have gazed in awe at the punishing half-mile straightaway that condemns all but the bravest thoroughbreds to defeat in this, the longest and most demanding leg of the English Triple Crown.

Yet as the St. Leger fi eld of the year 2000 thundered to the fi nish and Millenary and Air Marshall dueled neck and neck down the demanding stretch, an Irish horseman silently watched his runner fi nish a disappointing fourth. Distinguished, dark-haired, in his early fi fties, Dermot Weld hailed from County Kildare.

16

THE CUP

But the disappointing sensation was replaced quickly with a more enticing image, one that would remain framed in his mind’s eye for years to come: the repetitive motion of his runner’s powerful stride.

For a good number of the three-year-old runners, the English St. Leger would be the longest race of their careers. Too long in fact: 2800 metres. By comparison, England’s best known contest, the Epsom Derby, is 2400 metres. America’s blue riband event, the Kentucky Derby, is even more abrupt: 2000 metres. Of the world’s Classics, few are as demanding as the English St. Leger. It’s a challenge that rewards an exceptional staying horse.

Weld’s entry, the immense chestnut gelding Media Puzzle, hadn’t shortened his stride. Or grown winded. Or slowed his pace. He hadn’t won, but that point no longer mattered to the Irishman.

“He was staying, staying, staying,” Weld said.1

Even before the conclusion of the St. Leger, Weld was pondering the gelding’s possibilities. Media Puzzle had fi nished just 2½ lengths from the winner, Millenary. He could now be groomed for any number of lucrative contests: the Grand Prix de Paris or perhaps England’s defi nitive staying test, the Ascot Gold Cup at 4000 metres. This uncanny ability of Weld’s – to look beyond the task at hand and intuit hidden opportunity – has long been the hallmark of a highly successful career now spanning three decades.

Many a man knows horses, and plenty of people know the horse business. But the two worlds are often entirely distinct with breeders and trainers occupying the former realm and owners and syndicators the latter. Dermot Weld knows both. The man was to the track born. His mother, a Waterford woman in her eighties, still maintains an active breeding program at her farm a kilometre or so down the road from her son’s yard. Irish Derby winner Grey Swallow and Irish 1000 Guineas winner Nightime are two of Marguerite Weld’s many champion thoroughbreds; both were trained by her only child. Weld’s father, the late Charlie Weld, took out his trainer’s licence in the 1950s while based

1 Dermot Weld phone interview on March 19, 2003.

17

THE IRISH WIZARD

at Dublin’s now shuttered Phoenix Park. Years would pass, his fortunes improve, and by 1965 he was in a position to move from Ireland’s capital city to the capital of Irish racing, the Curragh of Kildare, 50 kilometres west and south of Dublin.

The patron saint of Ireland may be Patrick, but in County Kildare the locals pray to Saint Brigid. Even the briefest visit to picturesque Kildare Town, 10 kilometres from the Curragh, reveals a deep-seated devotion to this fi fth-century mystic, who is celebrated in local lore, commemorated in stone, and venerated in the hearts of her followers. One of the many stories still shared has her accepting a gift of land from the King of Leinster, a site by a high oak tree where she would build “the church of the oak,” Cill Dara, the source of the name of the adjacent town and the now famous county that surrounds it. Brigid also established a monastery with a renowned scriptorium and an adjacent convent as well. The fi re she lit on the convent grounds burned uninterrupted for six centuries, a perpetual fl ame symbolising the light of God. Yet the High King, Dunlang Mac Enda, had only agreed to give Brigid as much land as her cloak could cover. When she laid it on the ground, it began spreading far beyond their feet in every direction. Much to the King’s surprise when it fi nally stopped, Brigid’s cloak covered the enormous plain now called the Curragh, thousands of hectares of the greenest grass and the softest hills in all of Ireland.

Like Lexington limestone – the bedrock beneath Central Kentucky’s famed Bluegrass Country – the Curragh’s sandy soil rests on an immense limestone bed, three beds to be precise. Blessed with ample rain and rich grasses, the Curragh’s gently challenging rises are ideal for nurturing and nourishing young horses, a fact that became apparent thousands of years ago. According to the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, “chariot-races are spoken of as taking place on the Curragh in the fi rst century

18

THE CUP

A.D.”2 At the same time, during King Conari’s reign, Irish Hobby horses, one of the principal sources of sprinting speed in the modern thoroughbred, were fi rst raced at the Curragh. It was the beginning of a racing tradition that would continue through the centuries. Racing at the Curragh was eventually standardised with more organised race meetings in the early 1700s. The Irish Turf Club, proprietor of the Curragh Racecourse and steward of the rules of racing in Ireland, was founded in the coffee rooms of Kildare in 1790. To this day, all fi ve of the Irish Classics – the Irish Derby, the Irish Oaks, the Irish 1000 Guineas, the Irish 2000 Guineas, and the Irish St. Leger – are staged at the Curragh Racecourse.

Curragh is an ancient Gaelic word, one that means “place of the running horse”, which is precisely why Charlie Weld bought a training yard less than a mile from the fi nishing post of Ireland’s most famous racecourse. The man he purchased it from, a retired jockey turned trainer named Monty Wing, had named his stables Rosewell House, a tribute to Rosewell, the horse he rode to victory in the 1938 Irish Derby. Charlie Weld kept the name.

The beautiful manor features stabling for more than 100 horses, several large paddocks, and convenient access to the elaborate series of gallops that are the proving ground of some of Europe’s fi nest thoroughbreds. Rosewell House was to become Charlie Weld’s home for the remainder of his life, and on its grounds he would train more than 1000 winners, including his only son.

Born in 1948, Dermot Weld was a top-fl ight jockey as a youngster, winning his fi rst race at 15 on Ticonderoga, a horse trained by his father. In 1969, 1971, and 1972, the student of the University College Dublin was Ireland’s national champion, the top amateur rider under National Hunt rules. Early on he showed a keenness for travelling to distant lands to compete as a horseman. On one particularly memorable occasion, he trained a horse at the Curragh and then took it to England

2 “Curragh,” 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed. Accessed online July 1, 2008.

19

where he rode it himself in the Moët & Chandon amateurs’ derby at Epsom.

“His name was Lane Court, and one thing I remember well is that (Newmarket trainer) Luca Cumani rode the second,” Weld told a reporter for The Times.3

Perhaps it was a vestige of his Celtic heritage, but winning in Ireland did not satisfy the young jockey. Winning in England and France and South Africa and the United States did.

Under his father’s keen eye, he saw fi rst hand the many demands, the ever-present risks, and the limited rewards of day work. Soon he set his sights on greater goals and invested his energies elsewhere: journeying to Australia, where he studied training methods in Sydney, and travelling to America, where he mucked stalls and learned different tricks of the trade, fi rst at Belmont Park and Aqueduct in New York and later in Kentucky. In 1970, he graduated in veterinary medicine from University College Dublin. In typical fashion it was a record-setting event. Upon receiving Licence No. 295 from the Royal College of Veterinarian Surgeons, Weld became the youngest licensed veterinarian in Irish history. Two years later, he got his trainer’s licence.

His next career move was quite simple. Dermot Weld began winning races at a faster clip than anyone in the annals of the Emerald Isle. In 1977, the legendary Wally Swinburn set an Irish record racing as Weld’s stable jockey: 101 winners on the fl at in a single season. A delicate bronze in the Rosewell House yard commemorates Weld’s fi rst great champion, Blue Wind, a fi lly that won the English Oaks and Irish Oaks in 1981. Weld trained the winner of the Irish Grand National in 1988. Thanks to Zagreb’s Irish Derby-winning performance, he had won all fi ve of the Irish Classics by 1996.

The month before Media Puzzle ran fourth in the 2000 English St. Leger, Georgia Peach won a very modest maiden race at Naas.

3 Alan Lee, “Weld Leaves No Stone Unturned in Quest to Find Derby Winner,” The Times, May 27, 2008. Accessed online July 1, 2008.

THE IRISH WIZARD

20

THE CUP

Weld was less than enthusiastic about the bay, saying, “He is a lazy colt, but he was the right horse for the right race.”4

The lazy colt also happened to be Weld’s 2,578th winner, a victory that pushed him past the longstanding Irish record of Senator Jim Parkinson, the country’s dominant trainer during the fi rst half of the 20th century. From 1896 to 1947, it took Parkinson more than half a century to establish this benchmark fi gure. Weld needed less than three decades to surpass it. His achievement eclipsed Parkinson’s tally as well as those of some of greatest names in Irish racing, including Vincent O’Brien, Master of Ballydoyle and the man considered by voters in a Racing Post poll to be the greatest trainer in history. Just 52 and at the height of his powers, Weld was now the all-time winningest trainer in one of the world’s greatest racing countries.5

And he had done it in a way few considered possible. Before Weld, Irish horsemen spent about half the year racing on the fl at, a term used in Europe to describe traditional turf racecourses like the ones at Town Moor, Ascot, Newmarket, Longchamp, and the Curragh. The rest of the year, when the skies turned gray and the grass got soggy, the fl at tracks closed down and stayed boarded up until springtime. Fences and hurdles, the obstacles on the National Hunt circuit, became the order of the day.

Weld’s youthful career as a jumps jockey gave him an incalculable advantage as a trainer. His success on the National Hunt circuit became so evident that after decades of dominance one Irish newspaper labelled him “the true king of the Galway festival”.6 Clearly he was adept at both disciplines, yet there was a hitch to this arrangement. The money was in fl at racing. On the cold, windswept National Hunt circuit, the crowds were puny, the betting paltry, and the purses – by comparison – miniscule. Yet unlike the many generations of trainers to have preceded him,

4 All European racing results from Racing Post online archives.5 Eddie Wiley, “Weld Ready to Change His World,” The Independent, August 8, 2000. Accessed

online July 1, 2008.6 “The Legend That is Ansar,” The Nationalist, July 25, 2007. Accessed online July 1, 2008.

21

Irishmen who had endured the status quo, Weld set out to create a new business model for his racing stables, one that could run thoroughbreds on the fl at all year round. The key would be to race them overseas. Only a man caught in winter’s grasp in a country the size of Ireland could conceive of such an innovation.

Weld had no close, convenient option for relocation. Furthermore, at Rosewell House millions of euros had been invested in his base of operations, and there was no better location than immediately adjacent to the Curragh, one of the world’s top training facilities. To top it off, he had spent his entire career nurturing key connections, many of whom happened to be situated close to or actually in County Kildare just an hour’s drive from Dublin.

To hatch his plan, Weld would not only have to rely on his talents as a trainer and a veterinarian but to develop more worldly skills: fi rst and foremost, determining which races were the best contests for his runners anywhere on earth; secondly, convincing their astute owners to part with the substantial sums required to send their horses overseas. The latter chore was no easy task, as Weld would later admit. “You try it with my commercially minded owners,” he said, describing the formidable chore.7

Any doubts about his scheme were erased after he arrived in New York City with a lightly raced chestnut colt in 1990 for the Belmont Stakes, the third and fi nal leg of the American Triple Crown. Thanks to an inauspicious eighth-place fi nish in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile the year before, Go And Go commanded little attention from New York’s sporting press. His Irish trainer got even less. The big news in American thoroughbred racing in the spring of 1990 was the storied rivalry between Unbridled and Summer Squall, brilliant prodigies who had dominated the two-year-old campaign the year before.

As the Triple Crown got under way, their legendary duels grew to epic proportions. In the fi rst leg, Unbridled triumphed in a rousing fi nish,

7 Dermot Weld interview at the Curragh Racecourse on September 15, 2007.

THE IRISH WIZARD

22

THE CUP

powering past Summer Squall on the home straight before an electrifi ed audience at Churchill Downs. Unbridled’s gallant charge inspired one of the most poignant moments in Kentucky Derby history as his trainer, Carl Nafzger, gave an emotional race call to the horse’s 92-year old owner, Frances Genter, who was unable to see her entry’s triumphant fi nish.8 When her horse crossed the fi nish line, Genter became the oldest owner in Kentucky Derby history. Two weeks later at the Preakness, however, vengeance was Summer Squall’s; the order of fi nish was exactly the opposite.

Unfortunately for racing fans, there would be no best-of-three showdown at Belmont Park. Unbridled and Summer Squall were both bleeders, a term used to describe horses prone to exercise-induced pulmonary hemorrhaging. Banned from racing in Australia, bleeders are permitted in the U.S. At the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes, they were treated with Lasix, a diuretic permitted in Kentucky and in Maryland but not in New York. For the Test of Champions, however, the owners and trainers of Unbridled and Summer Squall were forced to decide whether racing without the benefi t of Lasix was worth the risk. The risk certainly had its rewards. In addition to the tantalising bounty of the $US411,600 winner’s purse, a staggering $US1 million bonus would be awarded to the runner with the best overall record in the three Triple Crown contests that year. After the fi rst two legs, both Summer Squall and Unbridled shared identical records – a win and a place – and regardless of where they fi nished whichever one bettered the other at Belmont Park would claim the million-dollar bonus. But Summer Squall, who carried the green-and-yellow silks of Dogwood Stable, belonged to a syndicate and had 28 different owners. They decided to pass. Unbridled had but one. The 92-year-old wanted to go to the races.

Partisan New Yorkers got behind the Big Apple’s own Nick Zito, who had brought home some big wins with a gutsy runner named Thirty Six

8 Video footage at www.YouTube.com accessed online July 1, 2008.

23

Red. Nowadays Zito is hailed as a Hall of Fame trainer, the winner of every conceivable American Classic, including fi ve Triple Crown victories. But in 1990 the Queens native was just coming into his own. He had worked his way up the ranks, from hot walker to groom to assistant trainer and fi nally trainer; Thirty Six Red was his ticket to success. In the month before the Kentucky Derby, Thirty Six Red stunned everyone with an upset victory in the Gotham Stakes and then followed it up by triumphing in the all-important Wood Memorial, a key prep race at Aqueduct, Zito’s home track in Queens. In the Belmont, the native New Yorker and his best horse would be back on their home turf looking to regain their winning form.9

Thanks to his impressive win at Churchill Downs and his placing effort at Pimlico, Unbridled went off as the 6/5 favourite in the Belmont Stakes (2400 metres). But it was the second favourite, Thirty Six Red who broke to the lead.10 Through the clubhouse turn and into the back straight, Zito’s horse battled out front with a feisty 65/1 long shot named Baron de Vaux, while Go And Go, festooned with blinkers to keep the mud out of his eyes, stayed in behind the speed right on the rail, never threatening, but never lagging. At the far turn, Craig Perret made his move with Unbridled, effortlessly accelerating into third place, easily passing Go And Go on the outside, and closing the gap to Thirty Six Red and Baron de Vaux. Then, without warning, the Kentucky Derby winner stalled.

The track announcer put it simply: “And Unbridled has lost the momentum. Unbridled will not compete with Go And Go.” Unbridled’s trainer, Nafzger, who later described his prep work with Unbridled for the Belmont as “the worst training job I ever did in my life”11 described the favourite’s run more bluntly: “He made his run and just died.”

9 Steven Crist, “Thirty Six Red Wins the Wood,” The New York Times, April 22, 1990. Accessed online July 1, 2008.

10 Steven Crist, “Go And Go Runs Away with the Belmont,” The New York Times, June 10, 1990. Accessed online July 1, 2008.

11 Bill Finley, “Trial and Error for Winning Trainer,” The New York Times, May 7, 2007. Accessed online July 1, 2008.

THE IRISH WIZARD

24

THE CUP

Perhaps the lack of Lasix hindered Unbridled’s abilities, but whatever the reason Zito’s Thirty Six Red was perfectly positioned to hold on to the lead and break the tape. Only he didn’t. Go And Go did. Thanks to a superb ride from Weld’s battle-tested stable jockey, Michael “Mick” Kinane, the Moyglare Stud runner shifted into high gear at the top of the straight with a turn of foot that was simply astonishing. The commanding move not only gave Go And Go the lead, but by the time the rest of the fi eld had straightened he was lengths in front – all by himself. The Irish runner won the Belmont by an astonishing eight lengths in 2:27.2.12

Although the thousands of Irishmen cheering in the stands were ecstatic about the $17 payout for each $2 wagered, the real news wasn’t at the betting window but in the history books. For the fi rst time in American thoroughbred racing, a foreign trainer had brought a horse to the United States just a few days in advance and dashed off to win an American Triple Crown race.

“The world is not as big as people think it is,” Weld told The New

York Times. “In the years to come, you’ll be seeing horses from many parts of the world racing here.”

The traditional post-race ceremonials were observed. The sumptuous Tiffany-made Belmont Stakes trophy was presented to Moyglare Stud’s Walter Haefner, who had fl own over from his home in Switzerland in anticipation of this very moment. Photographers from dozens of New York area newspapers besieged the winning connections. After the crowd had fi ltered away, the winning trainer opened up. His black loafers caked with the same mud that Go And Go had splattered on his vanquished rivals, Weld treated the racing press to a rare and revealing glimpse into the inner workings of his Curragh-based stable.

Unlike American trainers, who quite often put off their decision to compete in the Belmont until weeks or even days before the race, Weld made it clear that he had singled out the last leg of the American Triple Crown as Go And Go’s quest almost half a year earlier. At the time,

12 Crist, “Go And Go Runs Away with the Belmont.”

25

he and Moyglare Stud manager Stan Cosgrove decided that Go And Go would forgo the Irish Derby in late June to focus exclusively on the Belmont Stakes.

Thus began the colt’s training: six cold dank months at the Curragh under the watchful eye of Weld himself and, on many a morning, Cosgrove and the ever vigilant Jimmy Feane on the forgiving gallops that are the signature of the enormous expanse. The gallops at the ancient course are the bailiwick of Pat Kelly, who as manager of the training grounds juggles the demands of the many trainers and schedules their hundreds of horses. Kelly is also responsible for the grounds themselves. He oversees the more than 90 kilometres of grass gallops as well as the 1800 metres of wood chip, silica sand, and fi bre sand gallop known as the Old Vic. These soft slow rises not only strengthen and condition older horses but in the case of a growing two-year-old they allow the gentle development of crucial muscle mass.

Mornings at the Curragh follow a timeless routine, one that has no equivalent on the tight tracks of Australia or the United States. At Caulfi eld or Santa Anita, a track rider might bring a horse out at dawn, give it a little jog, and then proceed directly into his workout. Not 20 minutes later, that very same track rider will re-emerge on the back of another mount. By comparison a track rider at the Curragh spends at least 45 minutes, if not an hour, on each horse being worked. Depending on the yard, the walk to the gallops might take 20 or 30 minutes. Then comes whatever workout the trainer has in store for his runner. Afterwards, the long walk back to the yard is even more leisurely.

The most unusual aspect to this system is that trainers such as Weld have little use for a stop-watch. Instead they rely on their own powers of observation as well as the abilities of their track riders to monitor a horse’s performance. Years of bone-chilling mornings have taught Weld one fi nal, all-important characteristic of the Curragh. “It fi nds them out,” he says.13

13 Dermot Weld interview at the Curragh Racecourse on September 15, 2007.

THE IRISH WIZARD

26

THE CUP

Yet in retrospect what Weld did differently with Go And Go was neither a radical new exercise regimen nor a drastic alteration of traditional training techniques. Like any trainer, he knew how to single out the right horse for the cross-Atlantic task. Just as importantly, he recognised that the horse would have to be a traveller. Although he already had the services of a world-class man in Kinane, Weld was just as comfortable working with a seasoned local jockey who knew the track, understood the race, and could handle the fi eld. Weld’s knowledge of basic equine physiology taught him that on the long fl ight over, his horse’s greatest foe would be dehydration. This could lead to a drastic loss of weight – as much as 20 kilograms – a serious impediment in any competitive race. If quarantine regulations weren’t prohibitive, Weld would freight over his own feed as well. Farriers, veterinarians, racetrack offi cials – his meticulous mind had already ticked off the many traditional elements that went into prepping his airborne assault. But those were just details.

Trial and error, combined with decades of experience as a jockey, a veterinarian, and a trainer, had taught him that a horse’s physiology was only half the equation. Equally important to the Irishman were the more personal aspects of the horse: its attitude, its temperament, and, most of all, whether or not it was just plain happy. He is emphatic about this last point and makes it clear to the almost 100 employees working at his two yards.

Rosewell House is no spic-and-span operation, but calmness is a fundamental of the place. Weld prefers to describe it as “a working yard”, one where many hands soothe highly-strung horses. “You won’t fi nd any raised voices in my yard, and shouting is banned, even by the trainer,” he once told the Sunday Mail.14

Devoted grooms, some from Ireland but more from Brazil, tend to their mounts and routinely pick handfuls of fresh grass to feed their charges. In the mornings before the horses go out to the gallops, Weld personally

14 Gordon Brown, “Home Guard in Derby Defence,” Sunday Mail, June 29, 2008. Accessed online July 1, 2008.

27

inspects each and every one, looking for the slightest irregularity, hitch, or tick. And, in the absence of ‘the Boss’ himself, as Weld is universally referred to in his yard, the deputy he leaves in charge is a pint-sized terrier named Percy, who despite the onset of old age still relies on a quick bark to remind both man and beast who is the true lord of the manor.15

Weld seeks to balance physiology and psychology in ways that few can appreciate, and during the fi nal few days of one of his overseas assaults an intricate series of manouevres is required, movements that not only relax his runners physically but soothe and challenge them mentally as well.16

First, the fl ight. Weld’s dictum on travel is a simple one: the later, the better. “I’ve listened and learned and decided that the shortest time you can give a horse that’s travelling, often the better he’ll run. So I shipped out from Shannon on Wednesday. If I could have shipped out on Friday, I’d have done that. But we couldn’t. We fl ew to Paris and there boarded a cargo plane for New York,” Weld told the New York racing press in his pronounced Irish brogue. When asked about the effects of the 20-hour trip on Go And Go, he said, “It didn’t bother the horse at all. He’s a good traveller.”

Where his genius was best expressed, however, was in Go And Go’s pre-race preparation. Once the horse arrived in New York, Weld did almost everything the other trainers didn’t do. On Thursday, Go And Go’s fi rst full day in the U.S. and two days before the race, the Irish colt literally did not do a thing. The next day? More rest and relaxation. By contrast, on those last two days almost all of the other trainers topped off their entries with a fi nal workout. Yet on the day of the big race itself, it was exactly the opposite story. While everyone else did their utmost to relax their charges, Weld secured special permission from Belmont Park offi cials to have a fl oat pick up Go And Go and deliver him to the track for the briefest of workouts. Thanks to his apprenticeship at the track decades before, he knew exactly the offi ce to call. Six hours later,

15 Dermot Weld interview at Rosewell House on September 12, 2007.16 Bart Sinclair, “Weld’s Winning Formula,” The Courier-Mail, January 24, 2007. Accessed online

July 1, 2008.

THE IRISH WIZARD

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THE CUP

legs limber and mind at ease with his new surroundings, Go And Go stepped into the starting gates of America’s oldest Triple Crown race and galloped into history.

“We planned it to precision,” Weld concluded. “We concentrated on all the little things, and it all worked out. Many times, no matter how much you plan, no matter how precise, it doesn’t work out. This time it did.”17

Entering the 1990 Belmont Stakes was a bold strike, one that made the Master of Rosewell House and his revolutionary new schemes the subject of endless speculation throughout the thoroughbred world. In the coming years, the success of his blitzkrieg-like campaigns to distant corners of the globe would earn him numerous monikers, the ‘Irish Wizard’ and the ‘Irish Raider’ among others. It also made the task of convincing his horses’ owners to part with tens of thousands of euros to fund these lengthy, costly undertakings much easier.

On a more personal level, however, his success in the Belmont Stakes whet his appetite for challenging his best horses with the best races on earth, an endless quest with an inexhaustible number of possibilities. The year after his successful strike with Go And Go in New York, Weld loaded another Moyglare Stud runner, Additional Risk, on a giant cargo plane and shipped it around the world in the exact opposite direction to the inaugural running of a brand new race. With Mick Kinane on board, Additional Risk not only won the Hong Kong International Bowl (since renamed the Hong Kong Mile) – the world’s richest 1600-metre turf event – but in doing so he became the fi rst European trainer to triumph in Asia.

At the 2000 English St. Leger, with Media Puzzle, Weld knew he had another stayer on his hands. From among the world’s many great races,

17 Ira Berkow, “Dream Come True for Irish Trainer,” The New York Times, June 10, 1990. Accessed online July 1, 2008.

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he had already singled out the race for Media Puzzle in the following year, in Melbourne, on the far side of the globe. But what Dermot Weld didn’t know, what he couldn’t know, was that adversity would soon strike the young gelding and threaten his racing career.

THE IRISH WIZARD