There were 78,500 people at Flemington on Melbourne Cup day 1976. Those still living, hold indelible memories of their visit to the historic course on the day mother nature threw a tantrum.
You wouldn’t expect a twenty eight year old jockey to have heard of a German playwright called Carl Zuckmayer let alone one of his better known quotes.
Most country trainers agree it’s no pushover to win a TAB Highway. For a start they have to identify the right horse for the job and plan their programmes meticulously.
“Horse training is a business fraught with disappointments interspersed by the odd pleasant surprise” is a quote attributed to a veteran NZ trotting horseman many years ago.
Nikki Pollock’s ten wins for the month of May was impressive enough. To achieve that figure with only twenty horses in work is perhaps the best performance we’ve seen
Dylan Gibbons has won more than 400 races in just under five years of race riding. He’s already visited the Gr 1 winner’s circle on two occasions and has thirteen other black type races on his CV.
The famous hit song “Some Days Are Diamonds” has struck many a chord with horse trainers since John Denver first propelled it to the top of the charts in 1981.
While farmers on the western side of the Great Dividing Range are already nervous about the possibility of an impending dry spell, NSW coastal dwellers are wishing the rain would go away.
The significance of Greg Hickman’s Midway win with Glounthaune (Ire) on Saturday was lost on many racing fans. It’s likely that Greg himself had forgotten he’d trained the winner of the very first Midway ever staged on July 3rd, 2021.
A veritable army of people performing specialist duties play a vital role in the running of high profile race meetings. From jockeys, trainers and strappers to general stable staff.
