C'mon Jenni - do your thing!

It’s not often the racetrack becomes more of a theatre than a field or much better than a slot machine.

Especially if that is Doomben in Brisbane, poor cousin of the old guard Eagle Farm, across the Nudgee Road, once known as the Gaza Strip. It never will, or aim to, carry a “Royal” prefix. As close as it gets to Ascot is that Hampden St address is listed in the suburb of that name.

Dumben is its indigenous name (for a once prolific tree fern in the area), just that as a fun fact, Gloomben has sometimes been used as a more colloquial name, that too just shared for fun.

Let’s hope it’s Boomben on Saturday. Maybe Jennimania explodes. But that needs an engagement of Brisbane fans and racing.

Like when Bernborough or Rough Habit or Might And Power were there as ghosts and heroes of Doomben Cups past.

So, the Brisbane Racing Club and local fans get their chance to embrace and welcome a true heroine and pulling star of the turf - Pride Of Jenni - and turn Doomben into a rare silver screen come soundstage. You go there expecting a show. 

Sure, there are supporting actors in the Cup most notably, Antino already itself aiming for the lead role, but defending champion Bois D’Argent is back with third placegetter Fawkner Park, Gai and Adrian have Eliyass, upstaged by a heavy track in Antino’s Hollindale Cup romp, though highly rated from older receipts.

But if diva Jenni gets it right, Brisbane race fans - well they might not get “the demolition job” of that astonishing Queen Elizabeth Stakes of Sydney last year - but something to shout about as another standout performance from the reigning Australian racehorse of the year.

Or maybe just one of those “you had to be there” moments, if it can happen. And only she is that rare type of racehorse that can deliver one.

Pride Of Jenni is not just coming to town, her owner Tony Ottobre, with wife Lynn and son Michael (and the spirit of daughter and sister Jenni), they’re bringing an entourage of some 50 at least.

Pride Of Jenni with Ciaron Maher and Tony Ottobre

Not that Jenni needs any rent-a-crowd fanbase, wherever she goes she gets the tickets sold, the turnstiles clicking (ok scanned), but Ottobre is making sure his team, as well as Brisbane fans, can enjoy her at Doomben.

“I haven’t asked for anything, don’t expect anything, we just want to go up there and enjoy the races and for the Brisbane people to enjoy her,” Ottobre said.

“I’ve got the usual family and friends who come everywhere with us, but we’ve got 50 or so, Ciaron (Maher) and his partner (Alice Berry), Kanga (John) and his wife (Steph), Adam Sangster (and wife Sophie), people like Steve Pelligrino (a part-owner in Gold Trip).

“There is Cyril and Lynlea Small (who Ottobre helped when their son Braydon was battling brain cancer, something that claimed his cherished daughter Jenni), Brent Thomson (the four-time Cox Plate winning hoop), and my old mate Charlie Battisti (prestige vehicle repairer), but we are out there for fun.”

Which will include a pre-show dinner at (Gusto Da) Gianni’s on Friday night before race day where Jenni Lala (Magic Millions Mile), Jenni’s Meadow (The Roses) run also before Pride Of Jenni in the XXXX Doomben Cup.

But this is a rare chance for Doomben and the Brisbane Racing Club to embrace a real racing superstar, if not something of the modern version of their old crowd puller Vo Rogue (and there is the synergy of Cyril Small being along for another ride).

The BRC has jumped into the “free beer” promotion but have bet each way on Jenni or local champ Antino delivering the shout. Punters won’t care.

And it's State Of Origin week, the Queenslanders can latch on to Antino, Victoria to Jenni. The two horses can stare off at each other in Tony Gollan's yard before the Cup whistle blows.

Brisbane rarely gets such a real star, Peter Moody, once from Wyandra via Cunnamulla in central Queensland, bought his 2011 horse of the year champ Black Caviar back for a romp in the Doomben BTC Cup, her 13th of that extraordinary 25 start unblemished career and Doomben hummed.

But way before that - Bernborough was perhaps Queensland’s greatest star and the Doomben 10,000-Cup double of 1946 still remains legendary.

Off the back of the war (Camp Doomben was closed for racing, some millions troops deployed across the two tracks, only Albion Park survived racing) but come a year later Bernborough filled the Doomben track as a then modern-day hero.

The weight imposts (not weight-for-age back then) and you can see the heaving crowds (sure there was no Sky Channel or Channel 7), he won the Doomben 10,000 with 66kg (at 1350m) and backed up a week later with 68.5kg and gave the runner-up 10kg over the 2020m of the Cup.

Not surprisingly Berrnborough was one of the five inaugural inductees into the Australian Racing Hall of Fame alongside such as Phar Lap, Carbine, Kingston Town and Tulloch.

Might And Power would naturally get there too, but to have him Brisbane in 1998, was the last time a reigning Horse of the year competed in a Doomben Cup before Pride Of Jenni this weekend.

Of course he  had won the Melbourne Cup in 1987, add a Caulfield Cup too, a rare double, only since completed by Without A Fight, came back from its stellar spring and won The BMW (when it was known as a Mercedes), a Queen Elizabeth on a bottomless Randwick before heading to the Gold Coast for a Hollindale  Cup and then that Doomben Cup for Brian York.

With colorful owner, the Sydney fruit and vegie giant Nick Moraitis, (he was known to also referee a game of rugby league in an afternoon), Might And Power and the oft used adjective for trainer Jack Denham -taciturn -, was a rare gift to Brisbane’s early winter and didn’t fail to deliver, but that was it, come and gone.

Not so Rough Habit, who became as much maroon as he was Kiwi (and with 17 trips across the Tasman), perhaps the most identifiable box office star before Pride Of Jenni.

But “Roughie”, and trainer John Wheeler, were enduring treats. Coming as a non-descript three-year-old with a face that looked as though a carton of milk had been spilt on it, Rough Habit won the 1990 Derby and then ran in the first of five Doomben Cups, finishing third.

He’d win the next three and two Stradbroke's (it was run before the Cup) until 1993 when followed it, but he could only finish fifth and that's a fine "only".

Roughie went to Hollywood Park, naturally, ran in two Japan Cups, arguably should have won one of the three Cox Plates he ran in (1994), but famously came back to Brisbane to win the O’Shea Stakes in the dark in 1995 under Shane Scriven when the Queensland Turf Club, who normally wouldn't let the wind in, shouted drinks in the public bar then named it after him.

Not sure if any such honours will be bestowed up Pride of Jenni post her career, and this may be her last career run - well she was retired last December too but Ottobre admits that a foolish decision that was wrongly made on a race day - but he encourages Brisbane fans to get to Doomben to see if her girl can put on at least one more show.

He has kept everyone up to date with stable news from her final gallop Monday with jockey Craig “Froggy” Newitt and landing in Brisbane with long time chaperone Samantha Waters.

Now it’s up to Australia's champion racehorse - Jenni. And for Doomben to be filled with hungry, thirsty and eager fans.