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Boardroom politics took an instant back seat to a rowdy group of ecstatic owners on a sunny Saturday afternoon at Caulfield as outsider Globe caused a boilover in the $1 million Might And Power Stakes contested by just four horses.
The day after John Kanga shocked the racing industry by resigning from his post as chairman of the Melbourne Racing Club, a large clump of owners dragged racing back into the spotlight as they cheered home their seven-year-old gelding in the 2000-metre weight-for-age event.
Blake Shinn aboard Globe after their stunning win.Credit: Getty Images
It mattered little to these boisterous members of the Roll The Dice syndicate, who race Globe, that the MRC, which owns Caulfield, is in turmoil.
They didn’t care that the ongoing racing wars between Victoria and NSW had reduced the Might And Power Stakes to a tiny field. While key racing rivals remained in Sydney to contest more appealing million-dollar races at Rosehill, in further evidence that Melbourne racing is being diluted in the arms race, all that mattered was that they had won on the back of a Blake Shinn masterclass.
John Kanga just days before the Caulfield Cup carnival.Credit: Eddie Jim
They celebrated like a soccer cheer squad when Shinn first stacked them and racked them around the Caulfield course before leaving more fancied rivals Treasurethe Moment and Buckaroo in his wake in the dash to the finish line.
“It was a heist, wasn’t it?” co-trainer Mick Price said of the clever front-running ride.
“But you know it’s a horse race, not a mathematical formula.
“We get up every day and dream these dreams, and you know it’s fantastic for the owners, big bunch, and the horse has spent his whole life earning $600,000, and he just earned another $600,000 in two minutes.
“Like anybody, if they leave me alone, I can just train the horse. I can’t put it in a formula what you do sometimes as a trainer, but you know we dream dreams, don’t we?”
Price paid tribute to co-trainer Mick Kent jnr and the “40 staff and all our pre-trainers and all our equestrian friends” who celebrated the win.
Jubilation aside, as a Cox Plate audition, the light Might And Power field failed the test. It is hard to see any of Treasurethe Moment, Buckaroo or even the victorious Globe troubling big guns such as Via Sistina and Sir Delius at the Valley in a fortnight’s time.
The $3 million group 1 Guineas is now more likely to throw up a Cox Plate threat.
The Chris Waller-trained colt Autumn Boy streeted his rivals in the 1600m stallion-making race, emulating the feats of his sire The Autumn Sun, who saluted for Waller in the 2018 Caulfield Guineas.
“We’re proud of all the horses that come through the stable, but when we’ve got champions like The Autumn Sun and we’ve got sons and daughters, it’s pretty special,” Waller said.
Globe stormed to victory by three lengths in a race featuring just four horses.Credit: Getty Images
“Last week, Autumn Glow. Now it’s a super colt with Autumn Boy – it’s pretty special.”
But the country’s best trainer was tight-lipped about whether his latest gun colt would be headed to the Valley on October 25.
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“I don’t normally because they’re still babies,” Waller said. “He’s only had four or five starts, I think. So, it’ll be unlikely for us, but we’ll see what comes out next week, you’ve got the luxury of just sitting tight. He’s not overly raced so you can do it, but we’ll have to see how good Via Sistina’s going.”
Waller labelled Autumn Boy’s jockey Damian Lane a “world-class sportsman” for making a trainer’s “job so much easier”.
Queensland trainer Tony Gollan has a live Cox Plate runner in Antino, but he tasted early spring success in the cooler Victorian climate when his runner Translantic edged out Evaporate in the $1 million group 1 Toorak Handicap.
It has been a big fortnight for the Queenslanders after the Brisbane Lions won the AFL flag and the Broncos took out the NRL and NRL premierships.
“There’s something in the water in Brisbane at the moment,” Gollan remarked.
It was back-to-back Tooraks for the Brisbane trainer, who won last year’s race with Antino.
It is back to the drawing board for connections of Treasurethe Moment, a four-year-old mare who many thought could be the equal of another Yulong-owned star in Via Sistina.
“She really laboured late, which was really unlike her,” jockey Damian Lane said of the Matt Laurie-trained Treasurethe Moment, which has been recovering from a colic attack.
“First thoughts are disappointing without dissecting the race, going through the sectionals and everything like that, but I would expect at her best she’d go past Globe.”
Gun hoop James McDonald said Buckaroo was a “tad below his best because he was there to win and he just grinded it out, a bit one-paced”, which suggests the imported gelding might be better suited to next week’s 2400m Caulfield Cup.
In another of the afternoon’s fairytale stories, talented sprinter Giga Kick returned to form with a comprehensive victory in the group 2 Schillaci Stakes.
Giga Kick is trained by Clayton Douglas, ridden by Mark Zahra and owned by Jonathan Munz.
Douglas said his phone was on for an invite to next week’s mega-sprint race The Everest, but had been setting his sights on the VRC Champions Sprint at the end of Melbourne Cup week.
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