Horses for courses in 130 years of the Villiers

Cover image courtesy of Ashlea Brennan

On Saturday, Royal Randwick will open its gates to Villiers Stakes Day, a traditional summer meeting that has held fare in the harbour city since 1892. Run over the Randwick mile, the now G2 Villiers S. has a subtle but decorated history across 130 years.

It was first run on Christmas Eve in 1892, a mistake, according to the Australian Town and Country Journal. The newspaper said that no self-respecting raceday should fall on Christmas Eve, and that ‘the fields were small for such an important meeting and it is hard to find a reason for it’.

Of 40 horses nominated for the inaugural Villiers S., 11 took to the track for a prize purse of 300 sovereigns added. The race was run over six furlongs (1200 metres), and it remained a sprint until 1902 when it became a mile feature.

The inaugural winner of the Villiers was a drab gelding called Two Up (Arabi), and he clocked 1:17 for the race, winning by 1.5l at odds of 8/1.

It is thought the race is named after Lord Jersey and Lady Mary Villiers, who were visitors to Randwick for the Derby meeting (when it was held in the spring) in September 1892. As time went on, the race grew in stature as a highlight of summer racing with its normally splendid weather, long green lawns and stakes-level fields.

Early winners included Popinjay in 1913, who was a Futurity S. and Oakleigh Plate winner, and Cetigne in 1917, who was a decorated galloper in his day.

After them, the most notable winner was Bernborough in 1945, and his Villiers victory wasn’t only his first stakes-win outside of Queensland. It was a coming-of-age victory for the Champion, and it set off a dazzling win-streak of 15 races in a career that sent him straight to the Australian Racing Hall of Fame.

In recent years, the race has sat in an awkward spot as a significant stakes event often without significant stakes horses. It’s a time-of-year thing perhaps, with Group 1 horses still spelling or just coming back in.

Nevertheless, recent heroes of the Villiers include Group 1 winner Ike’s Dream (King Of Kings {Ire}) and last year’s winner Greysful Glamour (Stratum), while Happy Clapper (Teofilo {Ire}) is arguably the most accomplished of recent winners, passing the post first in 2015.

Gelding on the up

This year’s G2 Villiers S., the 130th edition, has a full house of 20 nominated on Saturday. It’s headed by a pair of horses from the Gerald Ryan-Sterling Alexiou yard in Ellsberg (Spill The Beans) and Steely (All Too Hard).

Of the two, Steely is a 5-year-old gelding on the rise.

He’s a son of the G1 Queensland Oaks winner Quintessential (NZ) (Fast ‘N’ Famous), who also won the G2 Eagle Farm Cup, G3 Desert Gold S. and G3 Chairman’s H. Quintessential was also second in the G1 Queensland Derby and G2 Brisbane Cup, and she’s a daughter of Florette (USA) (Sword Dance {Ire}), which is the American family of the stakes-winning ‘Madness’ horses.

Steely was purchased by Gerald Ryan at the Inglis Ready 2 Race Sale in 2018. He was consigned by Stonehouse Thoroughbreds and fetched $115,000. Alexiou said the horse was a little backward at the Sale owing to a repossession situation.

Previous to that, the gelding was an $80,000 Inglis Easter yearling, consigned by Bhima Thoroughbreds and sold to Dylan Barnett Bloodstock.

Gallery: Steely as a 2-year-old

“Gerald identified him at the Ready 2 Race and the horse was pretty backward and under-prepped,” Alexiou said. “Gerald thought he could develop into a pretty nice type, and he figured he could get him at a nice price for the sort of horse that he might turn into.”

It was prophetic thinking because Steely won his first race for Ryan at the first time of asking, a maiden at Hawkesbury on the first day of the new racing season in 2019.

“He showed a lot of talent in his first preparation,” Alexiou said. “He was a bit ordinary as a colt, so we gelded him after that win at Hawkesbury because we thought quite a bit of him. After that he struggled to find a bit of form, and we discovered he’d become a grade five on scope, so he had tie-back surgery in February last year.”

Steely returned from his surgery with a first-up win at Kembla Grange last year, and since then he has crept steadily through his races.

He’s run 16 times and finished within the top three on nine occasions and, in his last six outings, he hasn’t been worse than fourth. Among those are three wins, including a last-start victory at Kembla Grange over the mile.

Gallery: A few images of Steely racing at Randwick

“He’s been pretty exceptional,” Alexiou said. “He’s a horse that, on his pedigree, was always going to get better with age. Every preparation that he’s come in and come out of, he’s improved a few lengths, and he’s very straightforward to train.

"We don’t change much around with his routine, and his wind issue doesn’t seem to bother him anymore, which can be uncommon for horses running around at a mile and 1800 metres.”

History repeating

The stable decided on the Villiers for Steely when the horse began to show very consistent form last preparation.

“When he began to string together a few Saturday wins, we decided to target this race,” Alexiou said. “He was holding his form at a mile and further, and at that stage the autumn looked beyond him so we pulled up stumps at Randwick in July with the idea of being second-up into a Villiers.”

Alexiou said Steely’s last-start win at Kembla Grange cemented the gelding’s place in Saturday’s field, and they’ve drawn well with barrier four. Kerrin McEvoy will pilot the horse.

“I think he’s a really good chance,” the co-trainer said. “He’s very adaptable in his pattern because he can sit back and still have a turn of foot. He’s got 53kg on Saturday, which is a pretty good situation with the top weights at 59kg.”

As far as records go, Gerald Ryan won the Villiers in 2010 with the 5-year-old mare Dances On Waves (Anabaa {USA}). She was a consistent winner of five races in 12 starts, and her Villiers win 12 years ago wrapped up three straight wins on the bounce. It was also a stakes highlight for her then apprentice jockey, Brenton Avdulla.

“Dances On Waves was actually similar to Steely,” Alexiou said. “She won her Villiers at big odds coming through benchmark races, and she had the same sort of profile going through the classes, which is often the way this race has been won over the years.”

Steely sits on the top line of betting for Saturday's race alongside his stablemate Ellsberg, who is more fancied in the handicap ratings and carries 56kg.