History is on the line when Royal Patronage contests Sunday’s Champions Mile at Sha Tin, for success in the feature race would mark the first time that a woman has trained a winner in Hong Kong.
The woman in question is none other than Gai Waterhouse, the undisputed first lady of racing and an unparalleled trailblazer.
A total of 14 women – including Waterhouse – have officially trained horses to race at Sha Tin. New Zealand horsewoman Sylvia Kay, still training today at 83, came closest when her grand stayer Sapio finished second in the 1996 QEII Cup, while Corine Barande-Barbe was a frequent visitor with the popular Cirrus des Aigles.
But if Waterhouse – in partnership with co-trainer Adrian Bott – were to achieve the feat, it would be the best result for the Hong Kong Jockey Club. Not just because it would mark an overdue milestone, but also because she would provide the Club with headlines outside of the racing bubble.
There is simply no ambassador for racing quite like Waterhouse anywhere in the world. She possesses abundant charisma, a quirky yet endearing personality and unyielding ambition and drive.
In Australia, she is a household name. She was recently described as “one of the best known faces in the country” by the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC), one of the few personalities to have transcended the racing industry.
The daughter of arguably the greatest racehorse trainer Australia has ever produced, T J Smith, she initially flirted with acting and appeared in a Doctor Who series before returning to her roots and to horses.
Given the best 15-year apprenticeship one could ask for under her father, she was initially denied a training licence in 1989 due to her marriage to bookmaker Robbie Waterhouse; he was at that time banned from Australian racecourses for his involvement in the Fine Cotton affair, in which the well-credentialed Bold Personality was shoddily substituted for the out-of-form Fine Cotton in a Brisbane race in 1984.
Waterhouse, though, finally won her battle for a trainer’s licence in 1992 and prepared her first Group 1 winner (Te Akau Nick) within months. Now, she has achieved almost everything in racing in Australia – the Cox Plate is the only historic race missing from her resume – and the international stage, beyond New Zealand, is the final frontier.
Waterhouse spends more time abroad these days – she will be a special guest at the Kentucky Derby next week – but rarely with a horse. The stable’s international aspirations only emerge every decade or so.
In Waterhouse’s first few years as a trainer, she tried her hand across Asia including in Hong Kong: Few Are Chosen ran fifth to Overbury in the 1996 QEII Cup and All Our Mob finished fifth to Monopolize in that year’s Hong Kong International Bowl. Meanwhile, her old warhorse Juggler recorded the best ever finish in the Dubai World Cup for an Australian trainee when sixth to Singspiel in 1997.
It would be eight years before she would venture abroad again, this time setting her sights once more on Sha Tin. Grand Armee started favourite in the 2005 QEII Cup after a remarkable autumn campaign in Sydney, but he could only manage 11th to Vengeance Of Rain. Horses like Bentley Biscuit and Tuesday Joy could not reproduce their Australian form abroad and global aspirations were put on ice.
It wasn’t until 2014 that the Waterhouse name was seen again in an overseas racebook, but this time it was slightly different. She purchased Cafe Society the Monday before Royal Ascot and he ran third in the Wolferton Handicap four days later. Another purchase, Pornichet, ran down the track in the Belmont Derby two weeks later, giving Waterhouse her only American runner.
Royal Ascot would be the scene for her most recent international runner, Wandjina, sixth in the 2015 Diamond Jubilee Stakes.
After a decade at home, the first lady of racing is back on the world stage in a big way and ready to create history at Sha Tin. And even though she will be watching on from afar, the cheers will reverberate around the world should Royal Patronage win ∎
