'You’re one step away from a Group 1': Vella's patient 20-year wait to return to the Slipper

Cover image courtesy of Gratz Vella Racing

It was exactly 20 years since One Time (Mister C {USA}), who finished second in the then-Listed Black Opal Stakes, took Canberra trainer Gratz Vella to the G1 Golden Slipper Stakes where the gelding finished at the tail of the field behind Miss Finland (Redoute’s Choice).

Two decades later, Music Time (All Too Hard) went one better in the G3 Black Opal and snapped up $425,000 in prizemoney when holding on for third place at Rosehill Gardens on Saturday. The colt now heads to the paddock.

A patient wait for an Opal

In his defeat of the Sydney raiders by a length and three quarters, Music Time was the first locally-trained winner of the Black Opal since 2011, when You’re Canny (Canny Lad) defeated $2 million Magic Millions Gold Coast 2YO Classic victress Karuta Queen (Not A Single Doubt) by a length and a half in a boilover finish. You’re Canny had also been trained by Vella.

The wait to win that first Black Opal for Vella has been longer still than his wait for another tilt at the Slipper. Vella was present for the inaugural Black Opal in 1973, where Sydney raider Rich Reward downed local-trained Wanted Man by a whisker, and Vella was on the lead of fourth-placed finisher Bon Cherie (Marazion {GB}).

“I remember how good it was,” Vella recalled the meeting. “It was a tremendous meeting.”

He had been set on winning the race ever since, and it only took 38 years to achieve the feat with You’re Canny. He has come close on two other occasions, including One Time, who was felled by a neck by Gary Portelli’s Down The Wicket (Over), who would go on to run second in the G1 Sires’ Produce Stakes before a career in Hong Kong.

One Time, like Music Time, was owned by long-time clients of Vella, Brian Corkhill and his family, who have been with Vella virtually since the beginning of his training career in 1981. They also owned his other Black Opal near-miss, Another Time (Gilded Time {USA}), who split Al Samer and Jet Spur in the 2005 edition of the race.

A long and fruitful association

The partnership was forged when Brian Corkhill and his then-racing partner, the late Jim Munro, approached a young Vella not long after he obtained his licence and offered him horses to train. It was to be the beginning of a 45-year long association that is still going strong.

“When I was just starting out as a trainer, their trainer had a heart attack and died,” said Vella. “I only had a couple of horses at the time, so they approached me and said, ‘would you like to train our horses?’ And I said, ‘I would love to’. And that’s how it started.”

After the passing of Munro in 2017, Corkhill brought in more of his family members to the syndicate, which has historically bred their own runners but has also in recent years taken to buying horses with Vella at the yearling sales.

“His kids, his grandkids, they’re all involved,” said Vella. “Every year, I go to the Inglis sales and I buy a couple of horses, and I always give them first choice. I say to them, ‘these are the two horses I have bought, would you like to have a look at their breeding and everything, and see if there’s one that you are interested in?’ And then they pick which one they want to have.”

And in 2025, they picked Music Time.

The poddy calf becomes a racehorse

Bred by Greg Perry out of unraced Manhattan Rain mare Miss Eisenstadt, Music Time was offered at the Inglis Classic Yearling Sale last year by Vinery Stud, where he was purchased by Vella for $45,000. Miss Eisenstadt had already produced a stakes winner with Little Miss Kubi (Headwater), winner of the Listed Manihi Classic in 2023, beating subsequent Group 1 winner Queman (Mint Lane {USA}).

At first blush, a future Group 1 performer isn’t quite what Vella saw.

“He was a very big, gross colt,” he said. “He looked more like a poddy calf than he looked like a racehorse, because he was so round. But I liked the way he walked, I liked his action. There was something about him.”

So much did Vella like him that he reached almost to the top of his budget to secure the colt.

“I only have a little bit of money to spend at these sales,” he said. “When I go to the sales, I am spending my own money. I naturally only look at the ones that are going to be within my price point, but it’s very hard. You can think that you have gotten a horse, the bidding gets to $50,000 and the auctioneer goes, ‘once, twice’ - next minute, bang, bang, bang, he shoots up in price.”

$45,000 came just under the wire, and Vella headed back to Canberra with his round All Too Hard colt and a son of Tiger Of Malay, now named Kip Star.

Taking his time

Vella sent the colts to Goulburn to be broken in, and the one that would soon bear the moniker Music Time benefitted from a little bit of patience.

“The breaker took his time with him,” Vella said. “He had him there and brought him in and out three times, because I said to him, ‘if he's not ready, if he's not mature enough yet, just do so much with him, then turn him out. Bring him back, do so much more, then turn him out again’.

“The third time he brought him back in, he said to me, ‘I think he's right to come to you now, he looks strong enough and big enough for a full preparation if you want him’. So I brought him in and he went all the way through to the jump-outs and a trial in September, where he ran third. Then I tipped him out for a spell.”

It wasn’t long before Music Time was back in the stable with his eyes on a raceday debut just after Christmas, where he zipped home to finish second to Bar Jester (Sandbar). They would meet again two starts later in the $50,000 Black Opal Preview, where Music Time would resoundingly get the better of his rival.

“He did very well with all the work I gave him,” Vella said. “He just approached it all like a mature horse. I looked after him earlier when he was getting started, so he was a happy horse to keep in work.”

From there, it was straight into the Black Opal, where Music Time defeated six city-trained horses - and made it look easy. Vella credited it as a big effort for the horse, given the competition.

Return to the Slipper

That was meant to be the grand finale of the preparation for Music Time, but so well did the son of All Too Hard come through his Black Opal victory, connections opted to fork out the $150,000 late entry fee for the Slipper. The only horse to make the Black Opal–Golden Slipper double to date has been Catbird, the victor of both amid a five-race win streak in 1999 for Queanbeyan Frank Cleary.

“On the Tuesday after the Black Opal, we sat down to talk about it,” Vella said. “At first after the race, I had said, ‘he’s done his grand final, I’m so happy with him, now let’s give him a rest’.”

Those with Vella’s phone number thought differently.

“But over the next two days, I'd gotten so many phone calls, so many text messages, all saying, ‘you've got a horse there that's equal to nearly all the 2-year-olds in Australia at the moment. You should think about the Slipper’.

“So I approached the owners on the Tuesday and said, ‘look, the horse has pulled up enormous. I've been getting text messages to say that he's good enough to go for the Golden Slipper. He's no more than a length away from the better ones’. They had a think about it and we sat down on the Thursday, and I told them the horse is still doing well and that the decision is with them, as it’s a $150,000 nomination fee.

“And they said, ‘if you’re confident, Gratz, we’re confident. We’ll go ahead with it’.”

The gelding has repaid his connections almost threefold with his share of the Slipper prize pot, and a third placing in Australia’s premier juvenile race to boot.

“He did very well,” Vella said, although he has one small ‘what if’ about the run. “It's a shame that he ducked away from the whip, that's the first time he's ever felt it. Every time I’m watching the replay, I think it might have cost us second, because once he straightened up again, he kicked away again.

“It’s a bit unlucky to not run second, but I am happy with third. It’s not easy to get into the Slipper. There were 400 or so nominations for the Slipper in that final fortnight before the race, and here we were in the top 20.”

A victory for Canberra

Racing is not in Vella’s blood by birth, but it became imbued in his life as he grew up in Canberra. Vella was born in Malta, and emigrated with his parents and siblings to Australia’s capital in the early 1960s, where proximity to the local Pony Club gave an enterprising young Vella a step into the horse industry.

“My two brothers and a couple of mates and myself, we each built a billy cart and we used our pocket money to get half a dozen hessian sacks which we would take down to the Pony Club and fill with manure,” Vella recounted. “Then we would go door to door selling that. When the Pony Club joined with the racecourse, we would do the same thing there, and a couple of trainers offered us work. That is how I got started.”

One of those trainers was well known local Robbie O’Sullivan, who would go on to give Vella his first horses to train when he got his licence some years later.

When Vella was 14, his parents moved the family to Melbourne, but Vella only lasted six months before finding his way back to the capital.

“I got a job in a shoe factory, saved my money, and then I came back to Canberra,” he said. He was granted a licence when he was 22, and first had success at the picnics. Eventually, he would be taken under the wing of John Morrisey, for whom he worked for 20 years while training his own horses until Morrisey’s move to the Gold Coast in 2004.

But Canberra is where Vella remains, and it is Canberra that can claim a new Group 1-performing juvenile as their own.

Small numbers, big success

From small numbers - and small prices at the yearling sales - Vella has enjoyed plenty of successes over the years. Amongst the horses that stick out are Chosen Valour (Rise ‘N’ Shine), a 1996-born grandson of Luskin Star who was a steal at the Canberra Yearling Sales.

“I bought him for just $500, and at his first start as a 2-year-old I took him down to Randwick,” said Vella. “He had barrier 13 and he jumped in front and won by a short head. That was his very first start.”

The horse he beat that day was future Listed Ballarat Cup winner Aquiver (Danehill {USA}), who earned nearly half a million in prizemoney in his career. At Chosen Valour’s next start, he ran into the mighty Catbird en route to the Black Opal, where the former finished sixth. He would get the upper hand on Catbird one more time the following January in a Canberra quality handicap, and tot up seven wins in his career for Vella.

Another star was Mountain Time (Switch In Time {Ire}) who won 15 races and placed a further 31 times in a 99-start career, including wins at Warwick Farm and Canterbury.

“We took plenty of horses to Sydney, like Mountain Time,” Vella said. “We had a lot of fun with horses. The Corkhills, they give me the opportunity to go and look at different horses, and buy them if I like what I see. They leave everything up to me. I report to them nearly every second day, and that's all they need as long as I'm here and giving their horses the best treatment they can get.”

Another long-standing group of clients are the Trevaskis family, who owned You’re Canny.

“Thanks to them (both ownerships), I have gone to the sales the last couple of years and bought two each time,” Vella said. “Last year I bought Music Time and the Tiger Of Malay, and in 2023, I bought Teylu and Vella’s Best. Teylu has won his last three starts, and Vella’s Best has too. He came back for the preparation on Black Opal day and gave me a double that day.”

As for Music Time, he heads to the paddock, with Vella resisting the pull of Sydney’s juvenile Triple Crown.

“I've been getting phone calls and text messages saying, ‘you’re one step away from a Group 1, go to the Sires’,” he said. “But I'm not going to. I'm going to put him in the paddock and let him rest and grow, and keep our fingers crossed that he will come back bigger and stronger and better. We are in no hurry. We will look after the horse as number one, and the rest will come later.”