Source : the age
This was the racing industry’s worst nightmare.
The death of a horse in full view of a sellout crowd cast a pall over a day that was meant to honour the history of one of the turf’s great races.
As connections of the ghostly grey Kingswood celebrated an unlikely win in the 150th running of the Caulfield Cup, hundreds of metres away a green tarp was erected around one of the runners.
This year’s Australian Oaks winner Ohope Wins lay stricken on the track after a sickening two-horse fall involving last year’s champion Half Yours.
The mounting yard was sent into shock as medical staff raced to treat the fallen jockeys Mark Zahra (Half Yours) and Jye McNeil (Ohope Wins).
Concerned hoops peered from the edge of the parade ring before reporting back to friends their colleagues were OK. Zahra and McNeil, both Melbourne Cup-winning jockeys, were taken to hospital for observation but have escaped serious injury.
The sense of shock on Caulfield’s sunbathed lawns was shared in the committee room, where gasps echoed among the establishment, according to a guest who was there.
The accident, the subject of a stewards inquiry that has been adjourned to a later date, took place just metres away from where only minutes earlier the capacity 18-horse field was loaded into the gates. Not all made it home.
Ohope Wins was euthanised by the on-course veterinarian, while Half Yours was to have a thorough veterinary examination on Saturday night.
Worried trainer Tony McEvoy sprinted onto the track to check up on Zahra in a dramatic finish to the Cup, and then returned to the mounting yard grim faced, but relieved to tell stressed connections horse and jockey were ok, apart from a laceration to Half Yours.
Spring is when racing is supposed to shine. To mark this year’s Caulfield Cup, the Melbourne Racing Club pumped another $1 million of prizemoney for a record $6 million purse.
All the money in the game, however, cannot airbrush a horse fatality during the sport’s peak period, even if racing authorities attempt to do so by editing out vision of the fall from replays on its official channels.
The Victorian Racing Club will be on tenterhooks heading into the Melbourne Cup carnival after the famous race was brought to its knees by seven horse deaths in seven years from 2013 to 2020 but has remained fatality-free since 2021.
In fairness, this was a mid-race accident, unlike the Melbourne Cup in which several unsound horses had broken down.
Half Yours was the first to come down, the collateral damage from a buffeting duel on the home bend between Rachel King’s Green Spaces and Kings Valley, ridden by apprentice Jabez Johnstone on his Caulfield Cup debut.
Next to tumble was master trainer Chris Waller’s star staying mare Ohope Wins, who could not clear Half Yours with only a split second warning. Owned by Yulong, Ohope Wins had been destined to become a broodmare after her racing days.
Waller and Yulong later released a heartfelt statement.
“A dual Oaks winner and champion in her native New Zealand, Ohope Wins was a true star of the turf, but to the people who looked after her everyday, she was so much more,” the statement read.
“She was brave. She was kind. She was full of character. But more importantly, she was loved.
“Our hearts go out to all involved throughout her career, especially those who cared for her on a daily basis.”
Stewards will meet in the coming days to work out who or what was responsible for the devastating high-profile fall. This masthead is not suggesting that any jockey was at fault.
After the race, King did not address the bumping duel but called it a “messy-run race”.
The race encapsulated the dizzying highs and lows of racing.
Just minutes before Half Yours spilled, his owners conveyed their nervous excitement to this masthead of seeing their champion defend his title. It turned to disbelief.
Some in the ownership group were in tears in the immediate aftermath, unsure of Half Yours’ welfare.
“To have the excitement and the highs we had last year and [to have] this happen today, we love the horse,” managing part-owner Jason Biasin said minutes after the race.
“You just hope he’s OK. We hope Mark’s OK.”
The drama overshadowed a career-high moment for former jumps jockey Gavin Bedggood, who has long been seen as an heir apparent to dominant trainer Ciaron Maher.
His unheralded stayer Kingswood, unwanted by punters at the odds of $26, overcame a bad draw to sit three wide and win the race from another grey Saint George and UK raider Enfjaar. Race favourite Cosmic Crusader finished fourth.
Bedggood was unaware of the carnage behind his horse as he marvelled at the result.
“I was gutted when I saw it [the wide barrier] and thought we had to go back,” Bedggood said.
“You speak to people that you need to speak to and I had a chat to Johnny [Allen] yesterday and said, ‘You’re riding it, you’ve drawn 17’.
“I’ve ridden in races, and it’s easy to sit on the sidelines and say I want you to do this, I want you to do that, but it’s not an easy task from where we drew. I pretty much left it in his hands.
“We were pretty much posted three-wide all the way and everyone wanted to question the horse’s credentials at a mile-and-a-half. We couldn’t condemn him on his run here, it was on a [track rating of] heavy 9 and you had to put a line through it. It’s great to be vindicated.”
He said he was grateful to former trainer Darren Weir, who told Kingswood’s owners to consider him as a training option.
“He told the owners to send the horse my way, so I’m really grateful for that,” Bedggood said.
“When I got it, he told me it reminded him of Puissance De Lune, not because it’s a grey, but because it’s tough, it’s got a good constitution and it’s got a good capacity. He was bang on with everything he said.”
Allen said: “Gavin, he’s a trainer going places, we’ll be hearing a lot more of him after I’m retired.”
Shinn makes amends
Jockey Blake Shinn made up for the disappointment of being shelved for a Caulfield Cup ride on Saturday by taking out the other group 1 on the program – the $1.5 million Caulfield Guineas on Saintly Dancer.
Shinn, who missed nine months of riding after breaking his leg on Melbourne Cup day last year, copped a nasty surprise during the week when told by trainer Ciaron Maher he would not be partnering Royal Supremacy in the $6 million group 1 classic.
Maher told the star hoop that he had double-booked the ride, instead handing the reins to visiting UK jockey Jamie Spencer. It was a head-scratching decision considering the woeful record of international riders in our classic races.
But Maher threw Shinn a handy consolation prize. He also trains Saintly Dancer.
“[It was the] first Group 1 since I’ve been back, it certainly hasn’t been an easy road, but you just keep turning up and put the work in, and you get repaid with a big winner here today,” Shinn said after going back-to-back in the race.
“It’s all worth it and I just want to thank everyone who’s supported me and my circle and outside too for that matter, the racing industry has been wonderful so it’s nice to come back on a big day and show what we’re made of.”
Shinn was also one to look forward, overlooking Maher’s choice of Cup riders when praising the trainer.
“It takes a really tough horse and that’s what the Maher stable is all about, they turn up on these big days, they’re fit, and she’s put the writing on the wall all prep,” he said.
The jockey’s expected $45,000 payday for the winning ride will also cover a fine from earlier in the Caulfield program. The jockey was slugged $1000 for excessive use of the whip on beaten favourite Private Eye in race 5.
Maher will also have to hand over $2000 after a treatment mishap involving his imported stayer Point Of Law at the Werribee quarantine centre on Saturday morning.
Maher’s right-hand man Jack Turnbull pleaded guilty to racing stewards on behalf of the trainer for using Gastropell on the galloper – a paste to prevent gastric ulcers – which is in breach of racing rules on a race day.
Point Of Law was subsequently scratched from the Caulfield Cup, which was a moot point – as the third emergency, he wasn’t getting a start.
Maher’s stable hand, Samantha Waters, who usually cares for Pride Of Jenni, was also fined over the same incident after using inappropriate language towards stewards.
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