Life with Rosie Read online

  LIFE WITH

  ROSIE

  HELEN THOMAS

  The highs and lows of raising a racehorse

  Published in Australia in 2010 by Pier 9, an imprint of Murdoch Books Pty Limited

  Murdoch Books Australia

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  Publisher: Colette Vella

  Editor: Jody Lee

  Designer: Vivien Valk

  Text © 2010 Helen Thomas

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Cover design © Murdoch Books Pty Limited 2010

  Cover photography by Natasha Milne

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry

  Author: Thomas, Helen, 1955-

  Title: Life with Rosie [electronic resource] : the highs and lows of

  raising a racehorse / author: Helen Thomas.

  ISBN: 9781742662930 (eBook)

  Subjects: Thomas, Helen, 1955-

  Rosie (Race horse)

  Race horses--Training--Australia.

  Racehorse trainers--Australia.

  Horse racing--Australia.

  Dewey Number: 798.400994

  For Jenny Stearn, equine expert extraordinaire

  ‘Horses are often riddles waiting to be worked out.’

  —Bart Cummings from Bart, My Life

  Acknowledgements

  I am indebted to Robbie Griffiths for sharing his time and perspective on buying and training young thoroughbreds; Robert Kingston, for taking my calls even on Saturday mornings, and Deane Lester, for bringing us all together.

  Thanks also to my friends and family who went along for this ride, especially Rosie’s co-owners.

  As always, I’m grateful to Steven Alward and Marion Frith for tackling the first version of this story and Kirsten Garrett and Max Presnell, for their journalistic inspiration.

  And thanks to my publisher Colette Vella, editor Jody Lee and agent Lyn Tranter for having faith!

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Acknowledgements

  Preface

  Chapter 1 : At the start

  Chapter 2 : Early lessons

  Chapter 3 : The great divides

  Chapter 4 : Talking with The Master

  Chapter 5 : Growing up

  Chapter 6 : Drama on the farm

  Chapter 7 : The big move

  Chapter 8 : Fall of the hammer

  Chapter 9 : Grand theories

  Chapter 10 : Relocating

  Chapter 11 : The Class of 2009

  Chapter 12 : Southern lights

  Chapter 13 : Filly for sale

  Chapter 14 : Drama at the track

  Chapter 15 : Blood doesn’t lie

  Chapter 16 : Degrees of separation

  Chapter 17 : The get-back horse

  Chapter 18 : Fork in the road

  Chapter 19 : A little fast work

  Chapter 20 : Black honeycomb

  Lineages—Rosie and Harry

  Robbie Griffiths’ class of 2009

  About the Author

  Preface

  It was, the regulars agreed, like nothing they had ever seen before.

  Thousands of people were standing right alongside them, press-ing six and seven deep as they vied for the best vantage spots at this most prestigious of Sydney venues. Most of these strangers had never even been here before and would probably, hopefully, never return. Cheerfully impatient, noisy and completely out of place, they had eyes only for one on this mild autumn afternoon. And who could blame them?

  Right from the start, even as a baby, he had been the talk of the town, his presence hugely anticipated long before his arrival, his softly handsome looks and gentle personality much discussed even by those who had never actually seen him.

  This was hardly surprising. His birth, at 3.16 am on 17 August 2007, was announced in every major Australian newspaper and relayed around the world within minutes on the internet, with words like ‘strapping’ and ‘impressive’ used to describe all of his 47 kilograms.

  His mother, one representative reported, was ‘as proud as Lucifer’ immediately after delivery, and had herself performed admirably. Nothing less had been expected, given what everyone knew she could do and had done in the past. But there was always a niggling concern that this, her first pregnancy, could be complicated. A feeling any family would understand, given the circumstance.

  But this was the very best of families, so every possible scenario was mapped out well ahead of time, every contingency worked through in case something did go amiss. In the end, all went according to nature’s plan, and mother and son did well. And as he started his life on the picture-perfect property in the famous Hunter Valley in New South Wales, he was carefully shielded from prying eyes for as long as possible, to allow his famous mother to nurture him calmly in pristine surroundings, and to encourage him to grow at his own pace, untroubled by the expectations of the world outside the manicured pastures.

  There was even a media deal in place to ensure only one outlet had the right to capture his and his mother’s images. Little wonder the team that watched his every move, noting every step, certainly every scratch and scrape, nicknamed him Rock Star.

  As he grew into his gangly body, this team had gradually relinquished their hold on the light-framed youngster, only for others to take over in his education and care. And now, on this autumn afternoon in Sydney, all their work was coming to fruition, and the next chapter of his already extraordinary life was set to start.

  As he walked into clear public view for the first time, a ripple of excitement ran through the thousands-strong crowd, and those who weren’t at the front of the throng gazed enviously at the hundred or so seated around the arena he was heading towards. ‘Standing room only,’ one old timer remarked to a companion, as they tried to edge their way closer to one of the overhead monitors to watch this debut. ‘And we’re doing the standing.’

  But at least they could see him, if from a distance, and as he stepped into the main ring, a naturally lit circle of fame, for the next few minutes he was theirs. Public property for all to admire, right there for the taking, as some of the wealthiest, most astute schools fought to make him their own and take him home. For this flashy young thoroughbred, deep bay in colour with a slightly crooked white blaze running down his nose and four white socks on his legs, represented the finest blend of equine blood at Australasia’s 2009 Easter Yearling Sale—a son of an exceptional English-bred stayer called Galileo and, even more spectacularly, the first born of the great mare Makybe Diva, winner of three consecutive Melbourne Cups and $14.5 million in prize money.

  As it happened, this particular youngster wasn’t only a publicist’s dream on paper; he actually looked the part, a natural-born show stopper, almost an artist’s impression of a pretty young horse. Too pretty, some experts would mutter later, a ‘softie’ in body if not heart. Yet, as the colt started his lope around the ring, a hush washed over the unusually large c
rowd, as if there was a collective holding of breath to make sure they heard the opening bid. And there it was: ‘$500,000!’ the chief auctioneer Jonathan D’Arcy sang out, and a thrill slipped through the air, an almost involuntary shudder of exhilaration as everyone registered the exact sum on offer and then waited, again, to see how strong the next bid would be—could be—how high it would climb.

  In any other year, experts confidently predicted, this yearling colt would fetch $3 million, maybe even more under the hammer, as major money men vied for position and rose to the challenge, upping the ante time and again as they tried to secure the young horse and somehow, if only for a moment, get their own name up in lights at this extraordinary equine theatre. But not this year.

  This particular sale on 5 April 2009 fell right in the centre of the global financial crisis, which meant this promoter’s fantasy could easily turn into a corporate nightmare with dire repercussions for the country’s entire racing industry. A grim picture had been painted from the outset for the overall sale itself, with one senior auctioneer warning his vendors to expect a 30 per cent downfall in prices for their horses. And by the time Lot 90 walked out of his stall and into the sale ring, things were dramatically worse than that, 40 per cent down on what the same equine auction house had reaped for its clients just 12 months ago.

  Still, if ever a horse could turn things around, surely it was this one.

  Not even a major recession could take the shine off the first son of the country’s favourite mare, a racehorse whose name was known to every Australian.

  ‘$600,000 …’ Or could it? ‘$700,000.’

  Within minutes, the final figure of $1.5 million was reached—a stunning result by normal standards.

  But this was not an ordinary ring of sale. Here, dreams were sold in broad daylight, and part of their intoxicating magic was the impossible price tags, large and small. Champions were either bought cheaply, because of scruffy family trees or physical imperfections, or they were regally bred and worth a royal fortune.

  So a sense of anti-climax, if not quite outright disappointment, ran through the crowd as the colt left them, because this was Australasia’s elite thoroughbred yearling auction yard and global financial dramas weren’t supposed to penetrate. Financial commonsense, after all, often seemed in short supply here. This was where sheikhs and property barons and mining magnates gathered each year to outdo each other, spending astronomical sums of money on young, untried horses who hadn’t even seen a saddle, let alone had a rider on their backs. Nor had they been asked to gallop over any distance on a racetrack when they went into the ring, potential their only defining quality.

  To anyone outside this self-contained world, complete with its own language and professional standards, this makes little sense. But making sense to outsiders makes no difference to anyone involved in this cocoon; money changes hands quickly, often at staggering levels. Just 12 months ago, some 28 yearlings had topped the million-dollar mark in the space of three days.

  But not today. On this April afternoon, such prices seemed like a generation away, the $1.5 million a relief for all of Rock Star’s connections. Even though the world’s mega buyers seemed unusually subdued, brought to heel by the tough financial times, the colt had been sold for more than a million dollars, a respectable sum in any year.

  He had not been humiliated in the round, his wonderful race mare mother had not been humbled—and the tourist crowd was happy, clapping in appreciation as the youngster left the ring and the new owner, who most couldn’t see and fewer still would have recognised, signed the slip of paper that proved Rock Star was now his.

  Danny O’Brien, a Melbourne-based trainer, had apparently come north with exactly $1.5 million up his sleeve to spend on this colt. He was lucky.

  As the busy first-day sale crowd thinned over the next three days, two other youngsters sold for a million dollars, while a third—a strong brown colt by Encosta de Lago, Australia’s most expensive sire—topped the lot, the hammer falling at $1.8 million.

  This comparative unknown, then, was the real show stopper, stealing Rock Star’s thunder by $300,000. Was he better bred, a more correctly conformed individual? Was there more of a ‘buzz’ about the colt within the moneyed-up circles of serious buyers? Or was it simply a matter of expert egos taking a fancy to the colt? Beauty, the old saying goes, is in the eye of the beholder and at these pageants, every eye sees a thousand different things.

  Seventeen other yearlings went for $700,000 or more, further proof that hope and just a touch of madness do spring eternal when it comes to imagining what lies ahead for these thoroughbred babies. Something really does happens to grown men and women when they draw near these youngsters, something potent enough to make them throw natural caution to the wind.

  And this was just one yearling sale, in one city. The same thing happens around Australia through the first five months of every year, an annual punt of whopping proportion, a recurring display of extraordinary excess and constant dreaming.

  But for me, like so many others, the sale this year is different. Every single yearling entering these arenas represents a competitor for a filly nowhere near the sale yard. A filly I had bred and hoped one day, not too far away, to race.

  Chapter 1

  At the start

  She was born in the wind, on a farm not too far from home, on an unusually warm Sunday morning.

  A typical October breeze, gritty with dust, dipped over the paddocks and whipped through the trees, constant in its quick unpredictability.

  We had been waiting for her for days, watching every move her gentle mother made as she listened to her own internal, maternal clock and tried her best to ignore us.

  Having been through this seven times before, she knew what was about to come, and stayed well within range of the shelter shed overflowing with pale, fresh straw—always in view of the kitchen window of Diane, the farm manager, who had fed her twice daily for the past two months and who would help her with this arrival. Old hands, the two of them, they poked about each other calmly, leaving me to deal with the rising sense of urgency.

  I was hoping the foal would arrive before I left to work interstate for several weeks and had visited the mare a couple of times already that weekend, willing her on. ‘Come on, Po, you can do it!’ I would say, as she methodically searched my pockets for the lucerne and molasses sweeties she so loved.

  This was the first horse I had ever bought as a fledging breeder eight years earlier. Poetic Waters knew me well enough to happily accept the treats I showered on her, allowing a few minutes more for me to plead the case for action—‘Please, Po, you know I’ve got to go to Melbourne tomorrow morning, let’s get this show on the road’—before she sauntered away, a regal swish of her tail and sway of her hindquarters indicating enough was enough.

  I should have known better than to try and hurry her, or ramble on about due dates and timetables, or the fact that most foals are born between 10 pm and midnight. As we all know, babies, equine and human, are unconcerned by such detail. They arrive when they are ready. And she was, finally, at 10.28 am on the first day of October 2007. The mobile rang with the news just as I was closing the front gate of my little farm on the other side of town and the Shoalhaven River.

  It was Diane. ‘You’d better get over here, your mare’s having that baby right now!’ was all I needed to hear before jumping in the car and flooring it. Ten minutes later I was running into the stall in the paddock, ducking carefully under the soft webbing designed to keep the mare and her new foal safe from a sudden, very big outside world. And there she was, impossibly long legs tucked under her tummy, her mother already back up on her feet and hovering, licking her dry and nudging at her tiny, knobbly bottom.

  But no time at all elapsed in this brand new life before we all learned that this was a daughter who wouldn’t need much nudging, or urging, or hurrying along. Within half an hour she was up and tottering across the straw on unsteady pirate’s legs, making her way straight
for the safety webbing, nosing at it even before she had taken her first all-important gulp of milk. Her already steady gaze taking in her new world.

  ‘OK, I’m here now,’ she seemed to be saying, looking out over the immediate paddock to the hills and great sky beyond. ‘What’s going on out there?’ She was confident and curious, keen to know what was happening around her. This, we all agreed, was one cool filly!

  ‘What are you going to call her?’ Diane asked. Having worked with horses her whole life, she had offered to be Po’s midwife one afternoon when we bumped into each other outside the local newsagent’s, which also doubled as a TAB. It was an offer I accepted on the spot; she was well respected as a horsewoman and I liked her directness. ‘This one needs to know her name straightaway,’ she added.

  I watched the pretty bay foal peg-legging around the stall, suddenly intent on learning how to take that first sip of milk from Po, who was already wearing the mantle of Patient Mother. I thought for a few more minutes as the filly foal grappled with her initial task in life. No need for anything too cute with this one, I decided, though that smudge of white on her forehead was endearing, and her tiny tail hilariously charming. She needed a pretty name, but one that was durable, one that could grow right along with her.

  ‘Rosie,’ I said. ‘Her father’s King of Roses—let’s just call her Rosie.’

  ‘Let’s do that,’ Diane laughed.

  And so life with Rosie began.

  Getting to this stage was part of a journey that had started nearly a decade before, when I decided to stop talking about getting into horses and actually do something about it.