When we had a Golden Slipper runner!
- Bruce Clark
- 2 days ago
- 8 min read
So, Rosehill has been saved once. Come around 4pm on Saturday and its mounting yard will morph into racing’s version of a mosh pit and soon after 4.35pm (though take the evens it will be at least four minutes late) it may need saving again.
It will be filled with hundreds of owners of just the 16 two-year-olds left standing in the country who have made it to the stage for the 70th running of the TAB Golden Slipper where the small print says there will be $5m in prizemoney while hucksters will be talking million-dollar deals and dreams on the side.
But just think, some 1937 were entered for this edition, that’s not all of this generation of course, but it’s been a long and winding road journey from either conception or via the sales ring to get here, (this year’s batch costing between $45,000 and $1.7m.)
There are no guarantees, let alone 60-month interest free terms here. Think giants like Yulong, they nominated 115 and don’t have a runner. Gai Waterhouse (and Adrian Bott) had 107, they’ve got just one in the current final field (Shiki, an $81 outsider) - no wonder she’s staying home on the couch again but be assured she’ll be telling all why it’s a good thing to give her a ninth victory in the race. Godolphin, 95 and Zambales their sole runner.
So, congratulate yourself you got this far, so close to smoking the cigar, with that old cliche “you’ve got to be in it to win it.”
Sure, good horses win the Slipper, better ones sometimes haven’t or don’t. Todman won the first and remains the shortest priced winner at 6-1 on, Sweet Embrace the roughie at 40-1, but that was 1967. Phelan Ready and Kamichi at $26 give dreamers hope.
There are sad quirks like Redoute’s Choice in 1999 the market said 10-9 on favorite but woulda shoulda coulda couldn’t beat a high temperature, though he left a Slipper mark as the sire of winners Stratum and Miss Finland. (Catbird won his year by the way.)
Snitzel, his famous son, ran 12th, ironically to Stratum, but his giant light on the breeding industry is triumphed by the likes of his Slipper winners, Marhoona, Shinzo and Estijaab.
Written Tycoon didn’t win it either, 11th the same year but has left Crystal Lily, Lady Of Camelot and Capitalist. Extreme Choice, as hot a stallion as there is, was 8th home in Capitalist’s year 2016 but gave us Stay Inside to win a Slipper.
Girls too play, Samaready was 3rd in Pierro’s 2012 Slipper but would be Shinzo’s mum.
Anyway, I digress, so well done to all from the stallion venture capitalists as they aim to start squaring up their portfolio investments and to the mum and dad syndicates and small share owners who prove the egalitarian nature of our racing that we all get our chances to play too.
Let me indulge with a journey all the way back to 2003. The simple postscript is that our horse Snip Attack ran 14th at 40-1 to Polar Success in that Slipper.
Not even a miniscule dot point in Slipper history other than we were there. That should be the end of the story - forgettable, but then it's never forgotten. And that's the message to all Cinderella's looking for their unique Slipper on Saturday.
Watch the video here (and tell me this was horrible by Froggy!) But didn’t we love just
getting there.
For me the story tangents around two lifelong friends, Peter Moody, a trainer you well know that I met as a foreman for Bill Mitchell in Brisbane in the 1990’s and Andy Lewis, frontman at the family’s Emerald Hotel in South Melbourne.
This is how it goes to get us to Rosehill, via The Emerald and Launceston on April 12, 2003, with our Slipper runner - Snip Attack.
He was by General Nediym, Moody’s baby for Mitchell at Eagle Farm when one day asking, “do you like a bet”, queried out of the side of his mouth because a dart was out the other - “I’ve got one.”
That one was The General on debut, bookies bet 16-1 and Phillip Wolfgram hung on as he won by four before Mick Dittman took over for the Magic Millions when he walked in again and was 15/8 favorite for the 1997 Golden Slipper, only to run fourth to Guineas.
Fast forward, I’m in Melbourne managing jockeys like Oliver, Newitt, Walker and Munce.
Moody, now training on his own, establishes a camp at Caulfield and thankfully we get Ollie on board Amalfi for the 2001 Victoria Derby and Amalfi Lodge is the new digs and fast forward to “the members” at The Emerald trying to sell shares in horses for the trainer.
There were package deals, a Danehill that couldn’t win at Camperdown, but cost Andy three points and $300 speeding fines to watch it, which he didn't because of the delay and having to pull in at a Terang pub to watch it on the telly. I think it was sold for $10,000 soon after.
Or a gelding by Xaar who went to Hanging Rock on Australia Day with a less than ringing endorsement from our Moody trainer, so much so that when wily Les Theodore asked what we thought of ours and told us what he thought of his, we switched camps and watched a young Ben Melham lead all the way on ours.
Which somehow leads us into Snip Attack - a son of General Nediym. Andy and his father Gerry were in with me, Moody clients Jim Matthews and Dennis Johnson signed up, while Emerald barfly Ashley Sievwright - now known as the elite “The White Glove Mover” (if you ever need a removalist of note) rounded the team and the dream began.
There was a Slipper entry on the bill, but a debut fourth in the Maribyrnong Trial teased there was something there, a decent unplaced Debutant effort at Caulfield and also a fourth in the Blue Diamond Prelude, the year $26 chance Hammerbean upstaged $1.26 boom colt Murphy’s Blu Boy.
This was hardly Slipper form, but Moody had a plan. You need prizemoney to get you up the Slipper order of entry and in, there was the $100,000 Gold Sovereign Stakes at Launceston where $66,000 for winning would be a big help.
And this is where the fun starts. The Lewis family knows hospitality, and we are booked in at the Launceston Country Club, a casino and golf course and Snip Attack is short-priced favorite for the Gold Sovereign. My junior jockey Froggy Newitt had the job back in his home state.
We went there with just $8000 in the Slipper bank, and the $66,000 shoots us up the board, not in the Slipper yet, so firstly there is a win to celebrate. In Launceston.
Which is a long way from Wyandra in central Queensland, and Moody at the Country Club’s fine dining restaurant orders lobster with a specific side of chips.
Lewis made sure the jockey Newitt was looked after by putting his bed outside the room in the corridor, because he expected a late return. We were right - as we left to jag an early morning flight home, a young Froggy, still almost a tadpole, was making a very early sheepish trip back in.
An aside - the Gold Sovereign trophy was little more than a picture frame with three “allegedly” gold coins inside. Gerry Lewis somehow got it back to The Emerald, dismantled it, pinched the coins which were never seen against, folklore has it there were deposited into a cigarette machine, no durries delivered and coins gone forever.
The Slipper was still almost two months away as it panned out back then, Snip Attack ran in the VRC Sires but to no monetary avail, before Moody found a Listed race at the Valley, the Froggatt Stakes, which he won with Ollie up and $52,500 virtually had us in the top ten for the Slipper order of entry, we ran as TAB #4.
Come Slipper week and its game on and I trust all of this year’s owners have enjoyed it as much as we did - no matter the outcome. Like having a Cup runner, getting into the Slipper is a win in itself.
Gerry Lewis does the draw in Martin Place with his obligatory bright red AAMI cap and plucks eight - perfect - that celebrated at Doyles on the Rocks in Circular Quay until the Lewis’ are required to head home.
A little homage to Sir Les Patterson, the Lewis' they arrive at the airport terminal in suits and attached sponsor’s caps still worn as decoration only for the polite attendant to suggest they don’t need any more alcohol, even if requested and none will be served.
All good, we live the dream and reconvene as a team at The Bellevue Hotel in Paddington amongst familiar racing faces on race eve, many sharing similar fantasies to ours.
The reality bites. Our starting price perhaps overstated our chances, but we were in it.
John Hawkes and the Inghams had seven in it including Blue Diamond winner Kusi. Gai Waterhouse had four including Hasna and Shamekha, but Secret Land was her top seed and 4-1 favorite.
Moody’s instructions to Newitt were simple - “don’t think - do” translated into Queensland or Tassie speak - as “come out and go for it.” Froggie’s translation was obviously miscued - he thought. Polar Success drew 14 and Danny Beasley ended up in the one-one, Newitt, from eight ended up waving to punters on the motorway and it got worse.
The aftermath - Peter Moody came down from the grandstand, went direct to the taxi rank, headed straight to the airport and was back at The Emerald in Melbourne before we had finished drowning our Slipper sorrows at Rosehill.
Back-up in the Rosehill grandstand, my barrier draw wasn’t as comforting either. I am watching the race next to Graeme Rogerson, who naturally gets a little excited as Polar Success sneaks to the front and looking for a celebratory cuddle or to sell a share in next year’s charge turns to me. The warmth wasn’t returned.
Polar Success was just a $30,000 yearling for Dynamic Syndications, becoming the first syndicated horse to win the race, so new back then they didn’t even have their white and red colours or they “won it” tagline wasn't as annoying as it is now.
She never won again. But she is forever a Slipper winner.
And Snip Attack, he won first up as a three-year-old at Sandown, ran respectfully in the Vain, the McNeil, and the C S Hayes, and we eventually sold him to Malaysia.
To this day, I remain a Golden Slipper maiden (along with Lewis and our partners), but so too does Moody- Headway and Bring Me The Maid having taken him close. He’s empty-handed in Saturday’s Slipper but has runners in other Group 1’s on the day though maybe should be at The Emerald watching. Lewis will be pouring the beers.
Froggy has had somewhat serious claims with Samaready and Extreme Choice but like Snip Attack, still hasn’t won it. He rides Spicy Miss in Saturday’s Slipper wearing the colours of another syndicator, Darby Racing, who have won it with She Will Reign. Don’t think Froggy - just do!
What I am saying is it is hard to win.
So, I share the excitement of all with just having won the race to get to the race.
But that’s the Golden Slipper. Called Sydney’s race, full of brash bravado and derring-do.
Gai can win it from home, but to be there is as much adrenalin as one can take in 70 odd seconds as it has taken you a lifetime just to get there.
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