History
The Life and Times of Scobie Breasley
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Scobie Breasley was a jockey of another era: a jockey who never won the Melbourne Cup, but could lay claim to one of the longest and most successful careers in Australian racing history. An inaugural inductee into the Australian Racing Hall of Fame and a Member of the Order of Australia, Scobie died in 2006 at the age of 92.
Arthur Breasley was born in the small town of Wagga Wagga, NSW in 1914. Breasley got his “Scobie” nickname from the man he was apprenticed to at the age of 12, Jim Scobie, who was both a well-known trainer and a family friend. Scobie’s first major win, the AJC Metropolitan Handicap on Cragford, was at the age of just 16. In his entire career, Scobie started in the Melbourne Cup 16 times but never won, though admittedly he had tough competition when he competed against Phar Lap in 1929.
In contrast, Scobie owned the Caulfield Cup, winning it a record five times - including every year from 1942 to 1945, a winning run that has never been repeated. Scobie earned three successive Jockeys’ Premierships from the 1943/44 season through to the 1945/46 season.
Having established a successful career in Australia, Scobie then moved to 1950’s England, where his reputation became truly international. His notable wins in Europe included France’s Prix de L’Arc de Triomphe (1958), and the English Derby. In addition, Scobie was also awarded four English Jockeys’ Premierships - in 1957, 1961, 1962 and 1963. Scobie’s career was at its peak during most of the 1950s and 1960s. He rode a total of 3,251 winners, 2,000 of which were in England. It was a long career too, from just 16 when he won that first race in Australia, to winning the English Derby aged 50 and remarkably again two years later, in 1966.
Legends of Australian Racing George Moore
George Moore can truly be called a legend in his own right. He was awarded an OBE (1972) for services to horse racing, and for a career as both a jockey and trainer which spanned decades and continents. In 1986, the new Australian Institute of Sport inducted George into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame. He was also in the inaugural group of jockeys inducted into the Australian Racing Hall of Fame. In 2007, Australia Post featured George in their Australian Legends Series of postage stamps, featuring horse racing greats.
George Moore was born in Mackay, Queensland in 1923 and lived until 2008. He started his apprenticeship in Brisbane in 1939 and was soon one of the top apprentices before winning the Senior Jockeys’ Premiership in Brisbane in 1943. In 1949 he moved south to Sydney, where he began working for the trainer Tommy Smith. His first win in Sydney was the Rosehill Railway Handicap on Bragger. This was to be the start of the Smith-Moore partnership, which lasted over 20 years until the end of Moore’s riding career. During the late 1950’s he rode the magnificent thoroughbred, Tulloch, trained by Tommy Smith, to 19 of his 36 wins.
Moore won the Sydney Jockeys’ Premerships in 1957 and 1958, but in 1959 was tempted away to ride in Europe with trainer Alec Head. In France, his wins included the Prix du Jockey Club and the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. He also won the British 2000 Guineas race.
Flemington Racecourse, Home of the Melbourne Cup
Flemington is definitely Australia’s best known racecourse as it is home of the Melbourne Cup, the race that stops a nation.
Flemington in central Melbourne is where races were held in 1840, on the river flats of the Maribyrnong River. At the time, Melbourne was a town barely five years old and just starting to boom, largely due to the gold strikes in nearby Bendigo and Ballarat. Flemington then developed along with Melbourne.
Flemington is Australia’s oldest race course, and in 2006 was placed on the National Heritage List. Located just 15 minutes from Melbourne’s CBD, Flemington is firmly on the tourist map, although many tourists come to see the famous rose gardens rather than the horses! Flemington is serviced to this day by special race trains on big race days, and Melbourne’s famous trams at other times. Flemington is a big centre for training, with many of Australia’s best known horse trainers maintaining stables at or near the Flemington course
The history of Flemington is synonymous with the history of the Melbourne Cup. The Cup was first held at the course in 1861, and has been held ever since on the first Tuesday of November. The Melbourne Cup is the best known race of Flemington’s Spring Carnival, which runs over eight days. Other feature races are the AJ McKinnon Stakes, the Victoria Derby and the Victoria Oaks.
The Flemington track has an unusual feature called the “straight six” where horses race down a straight 1200m (six furlongs) section of track which then joins the track proper.
Despite All Odds, Damien Oliver Bounces Back
Damien Oliver is probably the best-known current Australian jockey. His is a story of talent and success, but also of heartbreak, tragedy and recovery. It’s the stuff Hollywood films are made of, and its not entirely surprising that a movie based on Damien Oliver’s career is currently in production. “The Cup” is scheduled for release in 2009, and will feature Stephen Curry as Damien Oliver.
Damien Oliver was born in Perth in 1972 into a racing family. His father Ray Oliver was also a jockey until tragically killed in a race fall in Kalgoorlie, WA.
Damien’s career started as an apprentice to Lindsey Rudland in Perth, and his first winner was Mr Gudbud in 1988 at Bunbury, WA. In total, Oliver rode 66 winners in WA and was the leading apprentice for the 1988/89 season. He then moved to Melbourne, to complete his apprenticeship with the trainer Lee Freedman. Under Freedman, Oliver did complete his apprenticeship with a total of 478 winning rides.
Oliver’s first Group 1 win was on Submariner in 1990, for Bart Cummings in the Show Day Cup. By the end of his apprenticeship he had 18 Group 1 wins, including the Caulfield Cup (on Mannerism). He also won the Victorian Jockeys’ Premiership twice as an apprentice.
Darren Beadman Ministers to Others As a Jockey
Darren Beadman is arguably Australia’s most successful jockey, but he is also a jockey with the unusual career twist of being an ordained minister.
Darren Beadman’s Racing Career: Take One
Beadman’s riding career had a flying start when he won the apprentice jockeys’ title in his first season, 1982/83. He won the title again in 1984/85, the same season he had his first Group 1 win on Inspired in the Golden Slipper, a race he won again in 1997 on Guineas. In 1990, Beadman won the Melbourne Cup on Kingston Rule in only his third start in the race.
In 1996, Beadman completed the double of winning the Cox Plate and the Melbourne Cup – two of the most prestigious races on the Australian racing calendar. Also in 1996, he took the record of 186 winners Australia-wide and won the Sydney Jockeys’ Premiership.
Beadman won the 1996 Melbourne Cup on a horse called Saintly – quite an appropriate name when you consider his next career move.
Caulfield Racecourse, “The Heath”
Caulfield, nicknamed “The Heath”, is a famous Melbourne racecourse that is one of the only racecourses in Australia to rival Flemington as one of the country’s best-known racing tracks. Located in Melbourne’s south east, the track is only 8 kilometres from the CBD, and is home to the Melbourne Racing Club.
1859 saw the first racing at the Caulfield site. In those early years, horses battled through rough bush and sand, which earned Caulfield its nickname of “The Heath”. The Victoria Amateur Turf Club (now the Melbourne Racing Club) held its first formal race meet in 1876, and in 1879 introduced the now famous Caulfield Cup - a race considered by many to be Australia’s best test of speed and stamina. The Caulfield Cup is run over 2400m on the third Saturday of October. The ultimate dream in Australian racing, of course, is to win both the Caulfield and Melbourne Cups: but so far only nine horses have done so.
Caulfield was extensively redeveloped in the 1990’s, and the new track opened in 1996.
The main Rupert Clarke stand is fully enclosed – which is a good idea in Melbourne’s often fickle climate. It offers uninterrupted views of the track and some of Australia’s most prestigious races.
Sensational Sprinter Takeover Target
Takeover Target is a horse who proves you don’t have to have a great pedigree and a big-name trainer behind you to become a champion. This sensational sprinter, who was recently named Australian Champion International Performer for the third consecutive season, was bought for just $1250 in 2004 by his taxi driver owner and trainer Joe Janiak from Queanbeyan, NSW. So far Takeover Target has won over $5 million in prize money: now that’s a good investment!
Takeover Target’s start in racing wasn’t auspicious. Sired by Celtic Swing out of the unraced dam Shady Stream, Takeover Target did not debut until he was nearly four because of leg and joint problems. It was a start worth waiting for though; in his first year of racing, 2004, he won his debut at Queanbeyan Racecourse and followed that up with a 7-race winning streak. After this successful year (which included winning the Group 1 Salinger Stakes at Flemington) Takeover Target had more injuries, which kept him off the racetrack for another six months.
2005 was a mixed year for the horse until December, when he won the Group 3 Summer Stakes at Doomben and also broke the 1200 metre track record. His form held into 2006, and his great achievement of being only the second horse to win Flemington’s three major Group 1 sprints: the Lightning Stakes, Salinger Stakes, and Newmarket Handicap. This gave Takeover Target an invite to the prestigious British Royal Ascot carnival in June.
In Britain, he won the King’s Stand Stakes and he began to be described as the best sprinter in the world on turf. At the end of the 2005-06 season Takeover Target was named Australian Champion Sprinter.
Sprinter and Stallion Danehill Sired Top Winners
Although bred in the US and owned for most of his racing career by a Saudi Prince, Danehill sired a line of winners which have left a huge legacy in the bloodstock of thoroughbred racing in both Australia and Ireland. In fact, his bloodline is probably one of the most important in Australia, as a new generation continues on his winning bloodline.
As a sprinter, Danehill started nine times, of which he won four. He is best remembered over shorter distances, winning the UK’s Haydock Sprint Cup and at Royal Ascot. Sold to an Australia/Irish partnership, Danehill went on to an international career which saw him covering seasons in the Northern Hemisphere at Coolmore stud in Ireland, and in Australia at Arrowfield Stud of Scone, NSW. In fact, Danehill’s success led to the development of the shuttle-stallion, where stallions stand at stud in both hemispheres. At the height of his career, his fee was rumoured to be around $600,000.
Although Danehill died in a stable accident in 2003, he was named a Leading Sire in every year from 2000 to 2005 in Australia, and 2005 to 2007 in Great Britain and Ireland. What’s more, his bloodline seems to go from strength to strength, with many of his sons now top breeding stallions in their own right.
Danehill’s Winning Offspring
John Hawkes, Premier Trainer
Some names are just so familiar to our country’s punters, they really don’t need an introduction. One of those names is premier Australian horse trainer John Hawkes.
John Hawkes began his training career during the 1971-1972 racing season in Adelaide. But his story really begins when he began working for the Ingham family in 1992. He moved to Melbourne from Sydney when offered the top job by the ‘chicken kings’ Jack and Bob Ingham. Hawkes was in charge of stables in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide. The Hawkes and Inghams’ partnership became a long and successful association that did not end until 2007 when he chose to begin his own training operation.
The working relationship between John Hawkes and the Inghams has already gone down as the most successful owner-trainer force in Australian racing history.
Glory By the Numbers
The Cox Plate - A Rich History
If you have any doubts about Australians love of horse racing, just look at the history of the Group 1 W.S. Cox Plate.
The “Race of the Century” in 1986 featured a titanic neck and neck battle between two chestnut geldings that raced into “equine immortality”. For the last 800 metres Bonecrusher and Our Waverley Star battled for the Cox Plate, with Bonecrusher prevailing by a neck. It is a story Australian punters retell over and over again, because it holds all of the elements which make horse racing so enthralling.
The Cox Plate race is a weight-for-age race over 2,040 metres and was named after William Samuel Cox who founded the Moonee Valley Racing Club. The first race was run in 1922 and with a purse worth 1,000 pounds.
Today the race is worth more than $3.1 million including $1.8 million to the winner. The only other Australian race with more prize money is the Melbourne Cup. The race is a Group 1 thoroughbred race for 3 year-old or older horses. The time it takes to run the race is often referred to as the “greatest two minutes in sport”.