Life with Rosie

by Helen Thomas

  Great, I think, we are actually going to send a horse to the races twice in a week, just like they used to do back in the good old days, 40 years ago. It’s a tactic rarely used now, and while it worries me a little, I have to confess I feel Harry’s been asking for it. Maybe a little tough love won’t go astray.

  I wait for the trainer to call from the city track, where—as usual—he is making his presence felt. While his lack of contact is unsettling, it also allows me time to think. Clearly, we have come to that fork in the road, the point where we must face the fact that we probably need to part company with the horse who, just a few months back, looked like he had turned the corner … the horse who now seems to have stumped one of Australia’s most astute trainers, who believed it was just a matter of a run, or two, before he started winning.

  Now, depending on how Harry pulls up after this race, Robbie Griffiths will back him up in four days’ time and force the issue.

  On Australia Day, 24 hours before we make this trip, I visit the stables at Cranbourne and have a good long talk with Harry, who looks big and bright and strong. He is sharing a row of stalls with three other horses: Kipsy, Avionics and Danzylum. All winners.

  ‘If he breaks through tomorrow, we’ll put a big sign up over his stall—“News Just In … Finally!” ’ one of the stablehands jokes. I sense an undercurrent of affection, as much as frustration. Robbie, meanwhile, is holed up in his office, just back from track work.

  ‘I’m really angry with myself,’ he says, uncharacteristically abrupt, as I step into his small, neat office.

  ‘I should have just put him back in the paddock after he ran so poorly first up; his blood has been consistently higher right through this campaign and I should have paid more attention to that, because—though he looks a million dollars and there’s nothing wrong with him that we can see—it’s obviously a seasonal thing. Harry doesn’t like summer. That’s what he’s been trying to tell us and I should have been listening better.’

  For the first time in the year I have known him, the trainer is cross, but amazingly enough, with himself, not our disappointing horse.

  The trouble with Harry, it seems, is the season.

  ‘The thing about Harry is he’s so consistent in whatever he does,’ Robbie reminds me. ‘He’s consistent in the way he works, he’s consistent in the way he races; even his blood’s consistent, whether it’s up or down, it pretty much doesn’t change.

  ‘The thing is I didn’t really know the horse at all. I didn’t know that he pretty much holds his form, if you like, right across the board—so if he’s improving, like he was last time in, he pretty much performs to that level all the time. He really didn’t disappoint us, he just couldn’t break through. I should have just kept him in work until he won that race for you and then tipped him out.

  ‘But I guess we couldn’t really have known he wasn’t a summer horse until we ran him in summer. Now, I suspect we know, but the trouble is, his poor form in New South Wales has caught up with him. Now, his record reads much less impressively, especially as no one else knows what we know about him not liking this particular time of year.’

  Robbie doesn’t have to add that the irony is that summer is his high season, the time of year his stable targets and does extremely well in, making the most of the fact that there are many good races to compete in—and so good money to be won—throughout Victoria, when most of the better quality horses are targeting the major Autumn carnivals in Melbourne and Sydney. This means Harry is completely out of step with the rhythm of the yard that has already worked a little magic on him, moulding him into a stronger, more focused racehorse.

  I wonder if he feels out of step now, if he dreads coming home after a nondescript day out on the track? He may be a get-back kind of horse in his races, but at this point he has to knuckle down and get back to business. Or he might have to find another one.

  Chapter 18

  Fork in the road

  Rosie, our beautiful young filly, has yet to be troubled by such dilemmas and our trainer is much more positive about the way things are going for her. He’s happy about the way she is developing, although she still hasn’t grown quite as much as he hoped she would while out in the paddock.

  ‘She’s doing everything fine,’ he says, his usual reassuring tone returning. ‘She’s doing a bit of pace work and I’ll make a decision in the next week if I’ve done enough stimulation of her body this time in. I don’t want to make her do any fast work this time round, but I might have to give her a little gallop to get her to where we want her to be before she goes out to the paddock again.’

  Her knee, it seems, still looks ordinary.

  ‘It hasn’t improved at all, at least not to look at. It’s not really swollen, it’s just what it is. I worry about it, of course, everybody worries; the only one not worrying about it is Rosie. And as long as that’s the case, that’s great. In terms of her attitude, she’s never had a negative day in her life.

  ‘She’s a real happy horse; she eats well, she sleeps well, she works well. She wants to be a racehorse. She has a good brain, all she wants to do is please you. Most horses with that attitude have good success. But we’re not sure how many cylinders she’s got yet, because we had to stop before we got to that point last time in … so we can’t answer “the” big question. Still, if the motor’s there, the brain will take her a long way.’

  Unlike Harry, the ‘key’ Robbie has to find with Rosie is the obvious one that keeps her problem knee safe and sound under race pressure. Yet, despite this specific management issue, he says she is really in the same category as a couple of the fillies he bought as yearlings: they haven’t quite grown fully into their bodies yet, and this leads to another training dilemma. If he pushes them too hard before they are physically balanced, if not fully grown, it could do enormous and irreparable harm.

  ‘In this situation, you don’t tempt fate and try and find out what’s in them,’ Robbie says. ‘The risk is too high.’

  While Rosie is probably the most perplexing of the youngsters in the Class of 2009, Robbie is applying the same careful, patient approach to them all, even the filly he believes to be the best of the lot, the daughter of Elvstroem.

  ‘She just might be the one,’ he admits. ‘She came second in her first trial under a hold and won her second trial under a tight hold. I didn’t put her under any pressure, she just did it on her own; she wanted to run fast. So she’s giving us all the right vibes, that one. It took me by surprise that she’s showing what she’s showing at this early stage, but she was a gorgeous filly at the sale … and she’s the standout at this stage.’

  In other words, while Rosie’s knee is holding her back, this two-year-old counterpart is flying above the radar, ahead of expectations.

  Many trainers would try to capitalise on such precocity and press on to the Group One Blue Diamond Stakes in mid February, another million dollar babies’ race that can really make a horse’s career. Not as prestigious as the Golden Slipper that will be run in a couple of months’ time, a Blue Diamond victory can nevertheless stamp a colt a potential commercial stallion, a filly a quality broodmare prospect, even if they never win another race in their life.

  It’s a victory that proves they have speed, and that’s what Aussie breeders want in our equine families. I wonder how many other trainers anywhere in the country could resist the urge to have a go at this race with their most precocious two year old?

  As we continue to run through the progress of the other equine students in Rosie’s class, it’s not hard to guess which ones would be closing in on at least their first start if they were in a bigger, more commercially driven stable.

  For months, the little Black Hawke filly, Robbie’s bargain basement buy, looked like being the top of that list. The first of the yearlings to show any potential in her early training, she had shaped up well, running very fast times on the track until a foot abscess side-lined her.

  The smallest of the God’s Own fillies, my
favourite of the youngsters Robbie purchased at the sales, also took her early education in stride, actually going through to a barrier trial and performing well. She is just back in from a spell and is a good eight weeks away from trialling again.

  ‘There’s a spark there for sure,’ says Robbie. ‘And that’s coming back to us from the jockeys, too.’

  On the other hand, the pretty filly by young stallion Not A Single Doubt, a two year old Robbie bred himself, has proved to be the most physically immature. So she hasn’t been asked to do a great deal, having only three short preparations before heading back to the paddock to rest and keep growing.

  Another member of the Class of 2009, the Hold That Tiger filly, is in a similar situation to Rosie. She became too shin-sore for her to be entered in any barrier trials, despite the fact that she was very fast. So she was sent back to the paddock instead. But like the daughter of King of Roses, she is back in work again.

  The Flying Spur filly Robbie bought early on the first day of the Premier Yearling Sale in Melbourne followed a similar path to her work buddy. She and the Hold That Tiger filly started school together, went ‘shinny’ together and are now back in the stables together. Given that Robbie says Rosie fits the same profile as these two, it will be fascinating to watch the trio progress through their careers.

  The real surprise packet is the Fusaichi Pegasus filly, who stood up to be counted enough to get to two barrier trials over 800 metres and might make it through to the current Autumn Carnival. To date, she is the only other Griffiths graduate to be named apart from Rosie aka Quiet Storm. She will race as Marvellous Miss and Robbie says he will be really surprised if there’s not a bit of quality about her.

  The God’s Own filly startled by the bunny several months ago has fully recovered from stripping the skin off her leg, knee to hoof, after running through the fence, and is now showing good speed in her work. But she’s too big for her own good, quite gross in terms of body mass, so she remains an unknown quantity as the team wait for her to finish growing.

  The lone male in the group—the tough nut who withstood a return trip from Melbourne to Perth—has also done well enough to have run two in trials, finishing third and second respectively. The son of Catbird is also back in the paddock, and being a gelding could be on the cards because he’s a bit of a lad, a distracting trait for a racehorse.

  But the dux of this class should be the Elvstroem filly, the girl everyone loves, especially her trainer.

  Happy as I am to hear things are going so well with this girl, I must admit feeling a little jealous our trainer isn’t rhapsodising about Rosie in the same way. Surely there can’t be that much difference between the two fillies, I think; surely the daughter of Elvstroem can’t be all that dazzling? Somehow, she’s just wheedled her way into his heart, and is getting all his time and attention. But as I look around his workmanlike office, the large whiteboard neatly tracking the whereabouts of the 40 or 50 horses he’s overseeing through various stages of training right now, I realise again how down-to-earth Robbie is about the horses in his care. The filly must really be good.

  The trainer urges his foreman to drive me up the road to see Rosie at Victory Park, and takes particular care to instruct Robert Kingston on the state of her knee, and precisely what we should both be looking at.

  ‘If you don’t know it’s there, you don’t really see it,’ he cautions. ‘But let Helen feel it herself, so she knows what we’re talking about.’

  As we drive the short distance between the Griffiths stables and the nearby training complex, Robert and I continue to dissect the conundrum that is Harry.

  ‘The frustrating thing with him is he’s always worked well in the mornings, he’s always shown us that he has more ability than he’s been able to display in his races,’ the foreman confides. ‘He has been very unlucky not to have won at least a couple of those races last year, we all know that—but what you don’t see is just how well he does at track work.

  ‘He’s working as well as some of our city horses and I think Robbie hasn’t made too much of that simply because he wants to see him get through his maiden race before talking him up. But he shows us enough in the mornings for us to think he could go on at least to mid-week class in town. That’s the really frustrating thing about it; his track mate in the mornings is Danzylum and he’s a fair horse.’

  He is indeed, having won just on $400,000 in prize money. If only Harry can study his workmate’s form!

  ‘I reckon I’ve lost about $200 on Harry,’ Robert says ruefully. ‘Every time he goes out, I have $20 on him because I’ve seen him work that week and I know how good he’s going.’

  I assure Robert that I share his pain. It’s one all his owners know very well.

  As we arrive at the slow-swinging electric front gate of Victory Park, a compact property of interlocking paddocks—some large, some quite small—full of horses, Robert and I both focus our attention on Rosie. Driving slowly towards the stables and main training track, the foreman reiterates his belief that all’s well with the filly, despite Robbie’s concern. ‘It’s his job to worry,’ he says simply.

  In a way, that, in itself, is good to know.

  Rosie is already saddled and ready to go out onto the dirt track with her regular exercise rider when we reach the stall where she is tied up, waiting to work. I talk to her as her girth strap is being tightened, delighted to see she has continued to fill out in her body, although she hasn’t grown any taller. All of her recent growing, in fact, seems to have occurred in the all-important nether region—her hindquarters—which means she looks slightly underdone in front, her shoulders not as developed as they will be eventually.

  Delightfully, her pretty, long face hasn’t changed at all in the months she has been busy metamorphosing from youngster to young racehorse and she still seems to recognise my voice, staring at me steadily as her track-work rider pulls himself into the saddle. As she comes out of her stall, Robert stops them both and kneels down to inspect her left knee, quickly finding the point of concern.

  An area no bigger than the tip of my index finger, something you really do not see when you look down at her leg, is indeed soft to the touch with fluid. What should be skin on bone is skin over a small amount of fluid, but it’s clearly not sore, and isn’t worrying Rosie at all. She stands looking over us, hardly bothered by this disruption in routine.

  ‘That’s it, that’s all there is to see,’ Robert says. ‘It looks like nothing at all, but Robbie knows more about these kinds of things than I do …’

  As if to allay her trainer’s concern, the only thing bothering Rosie as she trots and canters around the dirt track for the next 15 minutes seems to be the birds that dart around the edge of the course. She kicks her back legs at one, an extremely ungainly action at a trot, and has a go at stomping on another during the next lap with both her front legs. Again, not the best look.

  ‘She doesn’t like birds,’ her jockey laughs upon return. ‘Never has. But she’s a nice filly, she’s doing everything well and she has a lovely action, and there’s no sign of any problem with that knee at all.’

  The young woman who takes her into the shower bay tells us that Rosie is also one of the more outgoing personalities they are working with.

  ‘She’s always the first with her head over the door when we arrive in the morning, always first to whinny a greeting. She’s a bright little thing.’

  I ask if she has retained her trademark quick nip after that whinny and the strapper laughs.

  ‘Ah yes, she still does that. But that’s just her, you know? She doesn’t really mean anything by it, she’s just letting you know she’s there and not to be taken lightly. She’s actually a lovely girl, and she loves being here.’

  Robert concurs. ‘She’s well within herself, and she’s doing everything we’re asking of her. She can’t really do any more than that.’

  As Rosie walks away from us, regally swinging her generous rump, a rather imposing filly walks past her
and into the enclosed round yard. She’s already saddled, on a long lead rope and very full of herself: solid and tall, a coiled strength evident beneath the puppy fat around her tummy and hindquarters.

  ‘This filly is one of Rosie’s year,’ Robert says.

  ‘You’re kidding,’ I reply. ‘She’s huge, she looks like a three year old.’

  ‘She is a big girl, that’s for sure,’ he agrees. ‘This is the Elvstroem filly Robbie was telling you about. And she’s pretty good, too. Let’s watch this.’

  So for the next 5 minutes, we stand quietly on the raised platform at the side of the yard and watch the senior handler take the youngster through her paces in the high-topped enclosure, letting her get used to a saddle and girth again after her recent spell in the paddock.

  As she wheels around, trying to do a few cartwheels along the way, voluptuous is the only description that comes to mind, especially compared to Rosie’s light, compact frame. If this filly looks this powerful at this early age in her life, I wonder, how much can she improve over the next couple of years?

  No wonder she’s everyone’s pick of the crop, the best of Robbie’s babies—the one he was running late for on his way to the sales last year and had to buy over the phone. The one he could have pushed towards the Blue Diamond Stakes in a couple of weeks’ time, a temptation he resisted.

  Again, I am amazed at his professional reserve, his persistence in not pushing her too far too fast, because this filly is impressive. Seeing her walking past Rosie like that also puts everything the trainer and his foreman have been telling me into perspective.

  While our filly may well be doing everything they ask of her with gusto, there is nothing she can do to overcome her particular genetic make-up. Compared to this daughter of Elvstroem, our King of Roses two year old still has some catching up to do. The truth is she’s not as big and bold as she is small and determined at this point. Still, who can say which filly will have more ability on the track? But even I can see we’re starting from a lesser base.