It was only a few days removed from Easter Sunday, but if ever you needed evidence the outside of a horse is good for the inside of a man, watch the madcap few minutes after the G1 Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Royal Randwick.
Undoubtedly, the story of the race was Autumn Glow’s defeat, her first in 12 career starts. Some wanted to tell you the bubble had been burst.
But had it really?
It was her first try at 2000 metres and, in a helter skelter race of bluff and bluster, she ran third as a $1.30 favourite. Forget the price, there was no shame in the performance when you factor in how testing the tempo was.
But we can all get on with it and put the “Baby Winx” tag in the stable bin.
And as everyone who was anyone, and even others who aren’t, tried to cram into the winning photo to celebrate Sir Delius’ upset win, the biggest resurrection of the week was a man being pushed around the track in a wheelchair rising to his feet just long enough for the flashes of the cameras.
“I looked him in the eye this morning and said, ‘I want you to win for me. I need the money’,” Sir Delius’ owner Sir Owen Glenn told Idol Horse as he laughed, firmly back seated in his required mode of transport.
Sir Owen probably doesn’t need the money.
At 86, the Kiwi has lived a long and full life, as a businessman and philanthropist. He once part-owned the New Zealand Warriors team in the National Rugby League, and about the same time shortly after the turn of the century, started spending up on horse racing interests.
Few wins have given him as much satisfaction as Sir Delius’ boilover in the A$5 million weight-for-age classic, the day he shot Bambi.
A winner’s circle can be a funny place sometimes, and as Sir Delius just returned to scale, some of his supporters were trying to pick their jaws up off the floor after they had knocked over Autumn Glow.
“Even better when he’s a Frankel with nuts,” one laughed.
Sir Delius will stand at stud one day, but for the sake of horse racing in this country, hopefully that day can wait a year or two.
Outside of Sir Owen and the wider Sir Delius camp, not many gave anything else a hope of beating Autumn Glow, albeit it was her first race beyond a mile.
Her part-owner John Messara, one of the most successful studmasters in Australia, had in recent months expressed private reservations about stretching her out to the trip. But this seemed as good a time as any.
On Saturday, Messara walked into the mounting yard with a bung right shoulder which required race morning treatment, meaning he could barely lift his arm.
His horse shimmied around the parade with her chestnut coat shining, and a long, loose gait while barely lifting her head from her chest. Autumn Glow’s handlers still couldn’t believe how cool she was at her first day at the races, stabled alone in the tie-up stalls for a while (enough to make a herd animal edgy), and conserving that energy for the race. She only pricked the ears slightly and lifted the head when James McDonald was legged up.
Contrastingly, Sir Delius was buzzy, looking left, looking right, looking at anything that caught his eye for a millisecond before Craig Williams jumped on top. Williams is one of the best ambassadors the sport has, a soothing influence on horse and human.
It was an unusual week for him in that he stayed in Sydney with his family, hopping from train to tram and ferry seeing the sights.
He spends half his racedays taking photos and giving away goggles to fans. His humanitarian work has involved several dangerous visits to war-torn Ukraine to provide aid for the country’s armed forces, a cause close to his heart given wife Larysa is from Ukraine.
On the track it was a funny race, not just because of the result.
The experts’ anointed leader, Lindermann, flopped out of the gates and was last, and Sir Delius, who was ridden so cold by Craig Williams in his previous run he might as well have been in the Arctic, was nearer the hectic tempo.
As the field turned for home, Autumn Glow and the world’s No.1 jockey, McDonald, slid up into Sir Delius’ slipstream as others found the pain barrier too much. Autumn Glow looked under little pressure – she rarely does – but the next 25 seconds proved she’s not a machine.
It was a horse race, after all.
Sir Delius found the reserves that made him a one-time Cox Plate and Melbourne Cup favourite in the spring before his connections were forced to take a bitter bite out of a vet report. Autumn Glow found 2000 metres might be a no-go, even being pipped for second by a fast-closing Lindermann, whose upside-down tactics worked a treat.
Hall of Famer Gai Waterhouse, who trains in partnership with Adrian Bott, spoke to Williams on race morning and told him he was riding the best 2000-metre horse in the country … that we know of.
He still is.
“They wanted to be aggressive,” Williams said. “We know we can run 10 furlongs. And again, I had the right horse. When you’ve got a horse you trust and you know where they’re at, it’s easy for a jockey to make decisions, especially in these big races. I believe in the horse.
“I rode him two weeks ago in trackwork and I said to Adrian, ‘he’s working really well, but he’s not flying’. Credit to Adrian and Gai, they’ve turned him around. I worked him on Tuesday, and he was back to where he needed to be.
“And I knew in the gates where (McDonald) was, I knew in the run where he would be, it’s not too difficult to work out where he would be in the run. Gai was adamant, you have got the best mile-and-a-quarter horse in Australia that we know, when he is right.”
Whether Sir Delius was right in the spring is still a sore point six months on, a victim of Racing Victoria’s strict welfare checks before major spring races.
Having won the Underwood Stakes and Turnbull Stakes double, many had tipped him to cleansweep the Cox Plate and Melbourne Cup.
But then he had mandatory vet scans and was pulled from both races by officials due to a “heightened risk of injury”.
The scans have been in place for years after a spate of deaths in the Melbourne Cup, mostly from softer-boned European-trained horses not accustomed to the different training and racing in Australia.
At the time of Sir Delius’ spring wipeout, Racing Victoria chief executive Aaron Morrison told Idol Horse: “People have short memories and maybe some people just don’t know.
“We nearly lost our social licence. We had government and other partners coming in saying, ‘why should we support this industry going forward?’
“We do not take these types of decisions lightly. It’s terrible to take any horse out of our biggest race, let alone someone of this calibre, a favourite for the Cox Plate and Melbourne Cup.
“But we have to put the welfare of the horse first.”
Sir Owen hasn’t forgotten.
“When he was knocked back by Victoria last year, I was terribly disappointed,” he said. “I never, ever got contacted by (Racing Victoria), at all. Ever. And for me to put millions into this game – which owes me about $34 million – and not even have a phone call from them was terrible.”
Would he have won the Cox Plate or Melbourne Cup?
“Both,” he fired back. “There’s your horse.”
It’s too early to say if Sir Delius will be allowed back to Victoria, or even if they want to go back. Sir Owen has fielded interest from Hong Kong, Japan and Royal Ascot for his star to travel overseas.
If he does go back to Melbourne for a crack at the Cox Plate, he’s unlikely to see Autumn Glow there.
Such was the hype and hysteria building about her record, trainer Chris Waller was moved to publish a social media post the day after the Queen Elizabeth Stakes apologising for “getting her distance range wrong”, before adding congratulations to Sir Delius.
Deep down, there might be a sense of relief he won’t have to grapple with the expectation which comes from another suffocating winning sequence. Winx finished her career with 33 straight. Autumn Glow only got a third of the way. How Waller dealt with the Winx phenomenon still boggles the mind.
But there is still time to resurrect Autumn Glow’s top form, even if she is just restricted to the mile hereon.
It will want to be some resurrection, though, to match that of Sir Owen Glenn, the best example of the outside of a horse being good for the inside of a man. ∎
