Today, we're pleased to bring you an excerpt from the updated edition of Winx - Biography of a Champion, by Trevor Marshallsea, examining the great mare's stirring victory in the 2017 Ryder Stakes, a win which crystallised for trainer Chris Waller just what a phenomenon he had in his stable.
Author: Trevor Marshallsea
Through fifteen straight victories, Winx’s capacity to inspire awe had been as reliable as it was boundless. But could she sustain it? Her next test would be different again, in the 1500-metre George Ryder Stakes of 2017.
By mid-March, Sydney’s wet autumn had only become wetter, so much so there was grave doubt about the meeting — Rosehill’s biggest of the year, Golden Slipper Day — going ahead. Finally, it was given the green light after a stewards’ track inspection on race morning. This time it was a heavy 10, as wet as it gets. Rosehill’s premium day was dubbed ‘Golden Flipper Day’, as the swimmers came home one by one, their riders spattered with mud.
Though a Group 1 worth $1 million, the Ryder was meant to be a support act to the big scamper for two-year- olds in the Slipper. But more fans left the course that day abuzz over wrecking ball Winx than She Will Reign, the bargain-basement filly who took the Slipper two races later.
A serious race
This edition of the Ryder was a serious horse race. Far tougher than Winx’s previous start, the Chipping Norton Stakes, it would be rated Australia’s finest contest of 2017, making an International Federation of Horseracing Authorities top five that included this lot: the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe (rated number one), the King George VI & Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Royal Ascot, the Dubai World Cup and the Breeders’ Cup Classic. The Ryder was the only race of less than 2000 metres in the top nine.
It ranked highly, despite having only seven starters. Hartnell wasn’t there. He went to the race before, the 2000-metre Ranvet, partly due to distance, perhaps also to avoid becoming punch-drunk from his run-ins with Winx. Instead, Winx faced a field of first-class sprinter-milers, including Chautauqua and Le Romain, the world’s equal- fifth rated horses at the time on a mark of 119, and outstanding English rider William Buick’s mount for Godolphin, Hauraki. Rating 112, Hauraki had gone closer to Winx than any horse in the previous twelve months, through his length-and-a-quarter second in the George Main Stakes.
Winx powering home to win the 2017 George Ryder Stakes
Alas, the wet weather ensured the Rosehill crowd was well below the Golden Slipper Day average of around 20,000. The western Sydney track’s famous infield gardens and ponds usually provide a welcome, florid contrast to the course’s industrial backdrop of gas tanks and warehouses. On this day, however, all around looked sodden and grey. Of those who did attend, many crowded around Winx’s day stall to watch Waller and his stablehands saddle her up. One old-timer, roughly the same vintage as 86-year-old part-owner Richard Treweeke (who again preferred to watch from home), said what many were thinking: ‘She’s nothing special to look at, but she’s the best I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been coming here since I was six!’
The presence of greatness
As if to recognise the presence of greatness, the rain that had poured all day ceased — for around five minutes — while the Ryder was run, allowing clearer views to the back of the course and the starting gates. When they opened, Winx settled last, in less choppy going three off the fence, while long shot Leebaz led Le Romain and Hauraki. Eager to avoid flying mud, Hugh Bowman pushed the mare up to fourth on the outside past the 1200, four lengths off the pace as Chautauqua sat a length away, second-last near the rail.
Such boggy inside running had cost the grey dearly when beaten by Le Romain two weeks earlier, so his rider Tommy Berry was eager to angle off the fence turning for home, giving his backers more hope. In this field, though, it mattered little. While Berry’s move launched another duel down the straight with Le Romain, by the 350-metre mark Winx had taken control, and in astonishing style.
The track was an impossible bog, waterlogged and feeling like marshmallow underfoot. Horses in the background were now plodding, visibly struggling to lift their feet out of it. Yet Winx was flying, like a hovercraft over water.
With Bowman just sitting there as always, Winx fairly exploded into top gear like never before. Really, this time, it wasn’t meant to be like this. The track was an impossible bog, waterlogged and feeling like marshmallow underfoot. Horses in the background were now plodding, visibly struggling to lift their feet out of it. Yet Winx was flying, like a hovercraft over water. She was a whir of legs and hooves, the sodden turf mattering not at all as she skipped further and further ahead. It was extraordinary.
At the 200, the crowd’s applause in full swing, she’d put four lengths on Le Romain. At the 100, it was six. Like a lad on a motorbike, Bowman might have been opening the throttle to see what this thing could do. Yet he never so much as felt for the whip, and Winx just ran faster, mud shooting behind her, as she bounded away to be 7.3 lengths clear when the destruction stopped. Le Romain, Chautauqua and Hauraki filled the first four.
‘All conditions! All distances! All challengers!’ cried caller Darren Flindell, perfectly summing up this latest, and one of the greatest, of Winx’s victories. Her effort only looked better by assessing the clock.
The last 600 metres of the race — 35.65 seconds — was the equal-fastest closer of the day. It matched that of the open 1200-metre Group 3 on a fairer surface three races earlier, bettered that of the Golden Slipper two races later by 2.5 seconds — or the odd fifteen lengths — and was more than a second faster than Russian Revolution’s finish in the Group 1 Galaxy over 1100 metres. Winx herself clocked easily the fastest last 400 metres of the day, at 22.94 seconds. The effort would earn her best Timeform rating yet of 134, and her equal-best World Thoroughbred Rankings mark of 132.
Acts of God
What Winx was proving able to achieve — regardless of opposition, distance, and acts of God like an autumn deluge — was staggering. It just hadn’t been seen before. The previous year, she’d become the first horse to win the Cox Plate, Chipping Norton and Ryder Stakes in the same season. Now she’d done it again. This also made her the first horse to twice complete the Chipping Norton–Ryder double — involving a drop of 100 metres that would often test horses preparing for longer races.
An emotional Waller was able to briefly address reporters. ‘I didn’t expect her to win like that,’ he said, voice cracking and lip trembling again. ‘She’s an amazing horse.’
What Winx was proving able to achieve — regardless of opposition, distance, and acts of God like an autumn deluge — was staggering. It just hadn’t been seen before.
It wasn’t a Cox Plate. There was little doubt Winx would win. But what had become clear by now, and so moving to watch, was that the man’s soul had been touched, deeply and permanently, by being associated with this historical wonder.
Fans were moved too. Their applause, lumps in throats, their flags and caps said so. But Waller, from humble beginnings in rural New Zealand, was in the eye of this utterly game-changing global phenomenon. Its effect on his being was palpable. In his one journey through this world, in his life’s calling, he had found perfection. Who could ever hope for more?
In a sense, Waller was still grappling with what exactly he had. In a reflective interview a few days later, he said he was looking forward to ‘one day’ watching replays of all her wins by himself.
‘I think it will be then,’ he said, ‘that I will fully realise the privilege it is to have a horse like this.’
Watch: Winx winning the 2017 George Ryder Stakes
