From the main Might And Power entrance at Rosehill Gardens, there’s a rolling uphill walkway to the back of the main grandstand. It meanders past the glorious statue in tribute to Winx, arguably Australia’s greatest ever racehorse who won her last 33 races without defeat.
It’s a magnificent spring day, the sun shining, comfortable enough temperature, an intersection between the wet depths of winter and what’s on the horizon. You wouldn’t sell a day like this for quids.
Or would you?
“The people who all voted for this place not to be sold should be made to come to the races on days like this,” urges an industry heavyweight. He whispers just quiet enough so as not to put noses out of joint nearby, those who vociferously lobbied to keep the bulldozers out.
And that’s the problem: months on from the divisive and bitter struggle over whether the Australian Turf Club should have sold Rosehill for A$5 billion to be turned into a 25,000-home mini city (ATC members voted down the plan), no one quite knows the way forward.
Sure, there’s a good buzz in the downstairs members area. But a quick wander through the general public and concourse area reveals acres of cold, hard, empty concrete on a day which, with the A$10 million Golden Eagle now commingling at Royal Randwick, should be Rosehill’s second biggest behind Golden Slipper day.
Is there any way to get the people back?
All the while, a three-piece band plays valiantly perched on the entrance walkway to a small crowd that has already either set up their stalls on track, or one that won’t be arriving late so they can watch some of the best colts in the country do battle. Whatever they got paid, they deserve more.
During the type of fierce public squabble that came with something as emotional as whether the industry should have parted with its most valuable asset, the pro-sale lobbyists would open the shoulders on how bad the Rosehill crowds have been for years. In particular, for Golden Slipper day. If they didn’t come for a day like that, when would they come? They might have had a point.
Legendary businessman John Singleton made it to Rosehill, though. He’s been known to chopper into the middle of a racetrack when he wants to attend a meeting, particularly one he has a horse contesting.
He was one of the first to spill out of the extraordinary ATC general meeting to finalise the votes for the Rosehill sale in May, conceding defeat to a staunch bloc who despised the thought of parting with the land and questioned the club’s 11th-hour alternative presented to rank-and-file members. Singleton could never be accused of not taking risks or attaching himself to losing causes. So, he left before the final votes were cast. His prophecy was right.
With a bunch of old rugby league footballers in the ownership of his mare Gerringong, named after the picturesque coastal town in NSW, Singleton wandered through the Rosehill mounting yard, wondering if history will judge it as an opportunity missed. Fittingly, Gerringong ran second in a Group 2 race.
Yet the more things stay the same, the more they change.
The main fare was the Golden Rose, a three-year-old sprint over 1400 metres. Every breeder who is anyone is trackside, because this is when they make their money.
It’s a race which has been particularly money making for Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, and the Australian arm of his Godolphin empire. They won it last year, in 2019, 2016, 2015, 2012, the list goes on.
This time, they have Ciaron Maher’s filly Tempted as favourite. Oh, how about the irony if she were to beat the boys? And is this just a crop of overhyped colts who are all, ahem, maybe not that good?
But racing works in mysterious ways, and with Tempted drawing a wide alley and settling midfield, another Godolphin horse Beiwacht hums along in front. Like with almost every horse which has transitioned to a new trainer in the post-James Cummings, private conditioner model, Beiwacht seems to have settled well into his new life with Maher’s other mega stable adversary, Chris Waller.
The chasers behind him are desperate. James McDonald has rolled up a sleeve, literally, as he urges Coolmore’s Waller-trained Wodeton to chase. The more it gets desperate, the less hope there is. Tempted briefly looks like she’s about to crash the breeders’ bash, but quickly can claw no further ground off the other blue jacket.
By the time Beiwacht steams to the line more than four lengths ahead of Wodeton – whose win would have been written in the stars given the death of his sire Wootton Bassett during the week – you can already imagine the stallion scripts being written for television commercials next year.
Beiwacht! The best colt of his generation, from a proven Group 1 winner, he brained them in the Golden Rose in a track record time…
Track record?
“At the 200, I was going pretty decent sectionals and he wasn’t stopping,” jockey Adam Hyeronimus says. “It was electric really for seven furlongs.”
The clock stopped at 1:20.79. They can probably add another zero to his early service fee.
Waller lined up to face the television cameras (again) and, for once, he just needed to make sure he was across all the detail. Before his interviewer got rolling, he turned to an old, new lieutenant.
“Bivouac won the Golden Rose, right?”
Darren Beadman confirmed. Bivouac has a little slice of history, and Waller his first Group 1 win for Godolphin, and not just any Group 1 given the commercial reality.
“Godolphin has been an amazing story for Australia and they’ve been my biggest competitor for so many years consistently in these big races, the stallion making races,” Waller says. “We’ve learned a lot from them, the little systems they have … and they may think we’re OK too.”
There’s an extra big smile on the face of Beadman, who worked for Godolphin until August 1 when they shuttered their operations at Agnes Banks on the outskirts of Sydney and Crown Lodge at Warwick Farm. He needed a new job, and Waller obliged.
The one person who has seen Beiwacht from day dot and is still with him is Beadman. This is his win just as much as anyone else’s.
“It’s been a breath of fresh air and I’m so grateful for Chris to give me the opportunity to be part of Australia’s biggest racing stable,” he says. “This is very rewarding.
“What’s really surprised me is how the horse has really developed mentally and physically in a short space of time. It’s just a different training program and mechanisms Chris has applied. It’s obviously appealed to him.”
So, what has been the change?
“I’ve noticed that, but I’m not going to say,” Beadman laughs. “Stable secret.”
Hyeronimus wasn’t exactly keeping it a secret what he had to go through just to make it to the gates in the Golden Rose, but he wasn’t really broadcasting it either.
The day before the race as he wasted heavily, he also attended the funeral of his grandmother. She was 89.
“It was nice to see family I haven’t seen for a while, and it would have been nice to sit there well into the afternoon and sink a few beers, but they were very understanding of what I do and that’s why they would have appreciated that result today,” Hyeronimus says. “It meant a lot to a lot of people.”
Not least of all the bean counters at Godolphin.
Still, Beiwacht might not have been the best three-year-old to even race on the day with Golden Slipper winner Marhoona finally returning to the races and taking out the Heritage Stakes.
Winners of Australia’s richest two-year-old race traditionally have a shocking record thereafter, because the spring is coiled up so much during their juvenile year for the one massive target, often there is nothing left to give later. By three, they’ve floundered. By four and five, often just a decent footnote in history. Marhoona’s different.
“There’s always the talk about the Slipper curse, and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t sitting in the back of my mind,” Marhoona’s trainer Michael Freedman says. “But every indication over the last couple of months has she’d come back in good form.
“It’s rare territory you have one that has only had three starts and won a Slipper, and today was just her fourth lifetime start. That may have played a part, I guess. But she’s a very, very talented filly.”
So talented, you could probably whisper Beiwacht would struggle to get the better of her if they ever met at a middle ground. Find a race at Rosehill.
It might even be good enough to make the members come out for it, too. ∎
