By Lorenzo Di-Mauro Hayes
As jumps racing has been slowly limited in Australia down to one state, Victoria, the Warrnambool carnival has emerged as a unique event.
In the 2000s the sport looked to be in serious trouble but today jumps racing in Victoria has hardly been healthy. In the unlikely event that the Warrnambool carnival would cease to exist, jumps racing would cease to exist in the country of Australia, forever a footnote in sporting history, the final nail in the coffin if it were to lose its last great remaining asset.
In a similar vein, should the sport of jumps racing stop either by racing authorities or opportunist populations, the small town of Warrnambool, would have next to no big events to get the community and the wider world to get behind and travel to Warrnambool.
Warrnambool in May is on every Australian racing fan’s bucket list as it should be for without it, so much of Australian racing would look different and Warrnambool would be another beautiful but forgotten corner of the globe. The first Thursday in May is vital for the quiet beachside town. Yet every year, punters trek to Warrnambool to catch the races from the hill to see the warriors climb the paddocks. The carnival constitutes of three days of racing with 10 races for 30 in total. Only eight are jump races yet they are the pivotal event because the quality of those races is superior to the flat races.
On Day 1, the Tuesday, the carnival began with three maiden hurdles with each race over 3200 meters. But the feature race was the Briley Steeplechase over 3450 meters. The odds-on favourite was Stern Idol, a French import, trained by Ciaron Maher, a man in the conversation for the best flat and jumps racing trainer in Australia at the moment. Stern Idol has had many superb performances over two- to two-and-a-half miles. He ran in the Grand Annual last year, but was pulled up before the last obstacle. As he loves to do, Stern Idol got to the front and the leading four horses of Stern Idol, Britannicus, Mighty Oasis and Instigator were the only ones in camera shot for most of the race, and as a result the only ones in contention.
The four horses stayed together over the last jump. Into the home straight, Britannicus cut the corner, Stern Idol was racing down the centre of the course and was carrying the top weight of 73kg, but it did not seem to worry him as much as the challenge of Instigator, in the last 200 meters. Instigator racing down the outside looked like a winner as it came along side to challenge Stern Idol. But under the riding of Will McCarthy, Stern Idol fought “like a lion” as race caller Rich McIntosh said and, in a brave, gutsy effort held off Instigator to win by 0.4 lengths in what was among the best wins of his jumping career, which has seen many impressive victories.
“That was phenomenal. That was deadset … it was like the Cox Plate of jumps racing. The pressure was on right from the start and I actually thought they had him, but Willie (McCarthy) … he rated him well, he used his action and he’s very fit and very strong, Willie. It was beautiful to watch. He got him in a nice rhythm – for a big horse, it’s a good effort to get around there and the team has just done such a good job,” said Ciaron Maher after winning the race for a fifth time.
The biggest race on Day 2 is the Galleywood Hurdle, named after a Warrnambool icon. Galleywood fell at the final fence in the 1984 Grand Annual and looked like he may have to be put down, but the horse then rose to his feet and two years later in 1986 jumped the final fence this time around before claiming a heart-warming victory.
Chain of Lightning, in his first jumps race since a fall at the 2022 August Ballarat meeting had been recovering since with a tendon injury. The Ciaron Maher trained horse had more faith put into him by assistant trainer Declan Maher.
"Dec actually said the Galleywood is a winnable race this year and I thought we were mad but he couldn't go in the novice because there was a clause that it had been three years between runs or something,” said Maher.
Chain of Lightning settled worse than halfway, near the leaders at the last hurdle and held off the fast-finishing Port Guillaume to win. After the victory, Maher heaped praise on the staff at the stable to get the horse ready. "Just to get a horse to do that, who hasn't run over jumps for a couple of years in that sort of field, (it's a) phenomenal effort from Dec and the Ballarat team," he said.
The feature of the carnival is the Grand Annual Steeplechase. ‘The Annual’ was first run in 1874 under that name in 1895. It is the longest race in Australia at a distance of 5500 meters, with a detailed but oft-forgotten history with moments like Banna Strand in 2011, who after dumping his rider at a previous obstacle, put in the biggest leap ever seen at the ‘Bool, jumping over a 2-metre-high fence and injuring seven people. He returned and went on to win the same race in 2013 to the great battles between Zed Em and Gold Medals, culminating in the latter’s second win in the race at age of 11 in 2021.
The race consists of 33 jumps, beginning in front of the grandstands making the way to Briley Paddock climbing the hill to the top of Cox’s Hill descending Granters Paddock, turning left at Tozer Road on the first circuit, right on the second circuit before racing on the course proper. England’s biggest jumps race: the Grand National has Beecher’s Brook, The Chair, The Canal Turn and the Melling Road. The Australian equivalent has the Houlan treble, The Mantrap, The Tozer Road Double and steeple-lane. It is a race unlike many in Australia for its cross-country style, a type of jumps racing far more common in European nations like Germany and Italy.
The race got off to a bizarre start as the the race was delayed for eight minutes with the horses waiting behind the barriers, as security ensured the road crossings at Moore Street were clear. Spectators outside of the racecourse made their way to the road crossing, trying to catch a glimpse of the unique horse race, while many inside the course itself, took up their annual position on the famous spectator hill, where every aspect of the racehorse and the neighbouring paddocks can be seen.
In the days before the race, Briley Steeplechase winner Stern Idol as well as Mighty Oasis and Fort Charles, were scratched and then at 1:00pm just 90 minutes before the big race, Budd Foxx was looked over by a Racing Victoria vet and was withdrawn as he arrived at the racetrack. He was among the favoured horses. As a result, Rockstar Ronnie began the race the $3.10 favourite — he was the 2023 winner of the Grand Annual, who came to Warrnambool in better form than he did for the same race 12 months prior. Next best in the betting was Bell Ex One and Instigator starting at $6 ahead of Vanguard at $6.50, Crosshill at $7, Tom Foolery at $8 at double digit odds the most likely were Brungle Bertie at $13 and Count Zero at $31.
When the race itself got underway, Rockstar Ronnie was taken to the lead with Count Zero. The race was a quiet affair with confident jumping until the field returned to where they started from a lap prior, where the long shot of the field, Rudimental, unseated his rider over the 16th obstacle, the first of the Houlan treble, who carried on running riderless.
Nothing else happened of note until the Tozer Road double, where the right-hand turn was made far trickier, but the riderless Rudimental was stuck in the middle of the field trying to turn right as he pondered turning left. He bumped into Tom Foolery and also forced Count Zero, Rockstar Ronnie and Vanguard to making a wider turn allowing Bell Ex One, Crosshill and Instigator to make up a few lengths, which caused the field to be tightly bunched for the last 800 meters and four obstacles.
Rockstar Ronnie was joined at three out by Count Zero, who overtook him after jumping that fence but showed signs of tiredness, ending his chances of defending his crown. Only $101 chance Sandman finished the race behind him. Going past him was Bell Ex One, Vanguard and Tom Foolery. Bell Ex One and Count Zero eyeballed each other at the last fence and jumped it together in the middle of the course, allowing Vanguard to cut the corner and challenge. However, his progress was hampered in part by the clerk of the course grabbing the reins of the riderless Rudimental in the straight in a repeat of the first race of the day, where the clerk of the course did the same thing.
As Bell Ex One began to shift to the inside, the Aaron Kuru ridden Vanguard was obliged to shift to the outside and was beaten into third by Tom Foolery. But the race was for either Bell Ex One or Count Zero. Bell Ex One looked to be the stronger but Count Zero was not giving up the lead easily, as the horses raced by the winning post. McIntosh declared “I don’t know” but did add “Count Zero maybe a nose to Bell Ex One but I don’t want to have a go, that’s not a tip”. But it was correct, Bell Ex One at odds of $31 had won the Annual.
It was the second win in the race for Symon Wilde, who trained Gold Medals to two victories and two seconds. The win for Count Zero came off the back of a disappointing run in the Briley where he finished last, 37.4 lengths behind Stern Idol.
“We had a bit to look at after the Brierly,” Wilde said after the race. “He didn’t jump well, and I think that was due to him being out the back and Darryl was terrific. He said why don’t we put him up the front like he usually is. I’ll kick him hard out of the gates, and he jumped beautifully today, just with a better look at them. It was like he was disinterested in the Brierly when he got too far back off them. We were really lucky with the ground as he’s a top of the ground horse, but we know he can stay. He’s won a Jericho and he just needed to get that jumping right, and that happened today,” he said.
The winning jockey was Darrel Horner Junior, a regular on the jumps racing scene. He was as little as two hours before the race, ensuring he would make the 64kg weight.
“It’s the race every jumps jockey wants to win,” he said. “I went home about two hours ago to pull the last kilo off, and I was lying in the bath thinking was it all worth it. I can tell you it is.”
He became the second horse to win both the longest flat and jumps race in Australia — both races are run at Warrnambool. The 4600-meter Jericho Cup was first run in 2018 and is run each year on the fourth Sunday after the Melbourne Cup. Count Zero won that race last December and achieved a double only previously achieved by the Ciaron Maher trained Ablaze who won the 2019 Jericho Cup and then the 2020 Grand Annual. Eleven horses started the race and only Rudimental and $91 chance Wolfe Tonne failed to finish. In the feature flat jumps, former Group 1 winner Tuvalu, won the Wangoom Handicap over 1200 meters on Day 2 and Mystery Island won the Warrnambool Cup over 2350 meters. All horses who started a jumps and flat race at the carnival returned safe and sound.
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