Trailblazing trainer Barbara Joseph has sights on 2024 Big Dance with Zouatica

When Barbara Joseph first began training racehorses, she wasn’t even allowed to enter the ‘men’s section’ of the members at Randwick. It’s a much different story today as she prepares to saddle up Zouatica in Tuesday’s Big Dance.

Barbara Joseph didn’t need to be on track to watch Zouatica’s preparation leading into the $3 million Big Dance (1600m) at Royal Randwick on Tuesday.

Through modern technologies, the trainer can be at home in Bombala or at her Sapphire Coast stables and still monitor Zouatica going through his paces at Canberra trackwork.

“My boys, Paul and Matt, record every horse they are working at Canberra and send it to me,’’ Joseph said.

“I don’t get to our Canberra stables a lot these days but they will send all the gallops through to me to watch every morning and we talk every day.

“The videos from the mobile phones are so good, it is like I’m there. I can see everything and I can tell by a horse’s action how it is going.’’

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Joseph still has her Sapphire Coast racing base but these days she trains in partnership with her sons, Paul and Matt Jones, who oversee their Canberra stables.

This is where Zouatica has done most of his training for Tuesday’s big race.

In a sense, Zouatica epitomises not only one of the real strengths of Australian racing but also the seismic shifts in the sport since Joseph first started training.

A gentleman never reveals a lady’s age but let’s just say Joseph will soon be celebrating a significant birthday and career milestone.

“This time next year, I will have had 50 years in racing,’’ she revealed.

Joseph is an institution in NSW racing. She has trained nearly 2000 winners during her career, was the first woman trainer to win one of the nation’s most famous races, the Doncaster Handicap, and has received countless awards for her contributions to the sport.

And to think it all began with a chance meeting in her Bombala butcher shop in 1975.

The story goes that a customer came into Joseph’s shop and revealed he owned a racehorse and needed a trainer.

Joseph was no stranger to the racing industry, having ridden trackwork as a teenager. She still loved working with the thoroughbred and volunteered to train the horse.

Her application for a trainer’s licence wasn’t immediately approved. Back then, there were very few female trainers working in the male-dominated profession.

Trainer Barbara Joseph. Picture: Jonathan Ng

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Joseph persisted and eventually was granted her licence. She remembers saddling up her first runner like it was yesterday.

It was a Bombala race meeting on October 25, 1975, and the horse was called Howitt Park.

In a life-changing moment, Howitt Park won. For Joseph, this win was career-defining, her destiny was sealed.

“Howitt Park was my first horse, first starter and first winner,’’ she said. “I knew then that all I wanted to do was train racehorses.’’

This was a very different era in racing – and society.

Joseph did all the trackwork riding and stable care with Howitt Park. She couldn’t afford to pay anyone to help her.

But Howitt Park trained on to win 17 races and Joseph’s star was on the rise.

Joseph also remembers very vividly taking a horse to race at Randwick for the very first time and feeling dismayed when denied access to the “men’s only” members section.

“There was a white line that women were not allowed to cross in those days,’’ she said.

Joseph is one of the women trailblazers in the sport that helped shatter that glass ceiling when she prepared Merimbula Bay, who cost only $5,000 as a yearling, to win the 1989 Doncaster Handicap.

At Royal Randwick on Tuesday, Joseph is trying to win another feature mile race with another modest yearling buy, Zouatica.

Zouatica is just too good for them at Randwick!@JJRacing_ACTpic.twitter.com/LSXIYQ8Ua1

— SKY Racing (@SkyRacingAU) October 9, 2024

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In Australian racing, the dream is still very much alive when there are horses like Zouatica. He cost only $40,000 as a yearling, has already won nearly $300,000 prizemoney and is about to compete in a $3 million race.

Zouatica is at long odds for The Big Dance – but so was Merimbula Bay all those years ago.

“The Big Dance is like a Group 2 race, it’s very strong,’’ Joseph said.

“I was really hoping Zouatica drew a barrier but from out there (barrier 22 although the gelding could come into 16 if all the emergencies are scratched) it is going to be very tough.

“But I thought Zouatica won well two starts back on the Kensington track. He led early, got into a nice rhythm, they were never going to catch him that day and he ran fast time.

“Last start he was never really balanced and didn’t get into his stride. His work has been fantastic since.’’

Joseph has never been afraid to voice an opinion and is disappointed the Big Dance is not the domain of country-trained horses.

“I do think The Big Dance would be better if it was just for country horses,’’ she said.

“It’s harder now with all the city trainers coming to the bush to try and get a runner into this race. We were lucky to win the Moruya Cup with Zouatica to qualify our horse.

“Maybe they could keep the Little Dance for country-only horses. If a city horse qualifies for the Big Dance, that’s fair enough, but why not keep the Little Dance for the country horses.’’

Big Dance runner Zouatica wins at Kembla Grange in November last year. Picture: Jeremy Ng / Getty Images

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The Little Dance is worth $750,000 and is the consolation race for those horses that missed out on a start in The Big Dance. To be fair, there is a third race on the Randwick program, called the Barn Dance which has $250,000 prizemoney and is restricted to those horses that are trained in country areas.

With other big-money country-only races like The Kosciuszko, Country Championships, the weekly TAB Highways and various showcase meetings, there is a lot more opportunity for those stables based in bush regions to race for better prizemoney.

Joseph and her sons are sending three horses to the Cup Day program at Royal Randwick with Super Helpful, who ran so well for third in The Big Dance last year, contesting the Barn Dance, and Belleistic Kids is an emergency for the Little Dance and is also entered for the All Occasion Cruises Handicap (1500m).

“Super Helpful is really going well,’’ she said. “He couldn’t get a start in The Kosciuszko but hopefully he can run a good race on Tuesday.

“Belleistic Kids would be a chance in either race. Don’t worry, he’s going nicely.’’

There is a gap of 70 minutes between The Big Dance and The Little Dance to allow for the 3pm start to the Melbourne Cup.

Joseph had one of her career highlights at Flemington in 2003 when her top mare Ain’t Seen Nothin’ ran in the famous Flemington two-miler.

Ain’t Seen Nothin’ moved into the race on the turn and momentarily looked a winning chance but failed to run out a strong 3200m, fading to run 13th. The race was won by the mighty mare Makybe Diva, the first of her unprecedented Cup hat-trick.

“To be at Flemington the day Makybe Diva won her first Cup and to have Ain’t Seen Nothin’ run so well was something I will never forget,’’ Joseph said.

“Ain’t Seen Nothin’ was a great horse for me. She won six straight which is not easy to do, and won a number of stakes races, and then she was a very good broodmare.’’

At stud, Ain’t Seen Nothin’ produced nine foals, including two stakeswinners. She sadly passed away 12 months ago.

When Joseph started training nearly 50 years ago, training partnerships didn’t exist. Once again, how times have changed.

“There are races every day now and if you are training on your own, it can be very hard,’’ she said.

“I think back to the days when my kids were young and they did without a lot because I was always on the road or doing something.

“But Paul and Matt have grown up to be good people, I’m so proud of them, and the training partnership is going great.’’

Joseph said working closely with her sons enables the three of them to share the workload.

Paul Jones and Barbara Joseph celebrate a Canberra Cup victory with Fill The Page.

“There are days when we are starting at 3.30am for trackwork and then we have to get on the road to the races. We might not get home until 10 or 11pm,’’ she said.

“You need to have a life, it can’t be all about racing, so we split it up a bit so we can have some time with family, too.’’

Joseph remains as passionate as ever about the sport she has made her life. She talks about her horses the way parents talk about their children.

“If I go away from the stables for two or three days, I can’t wait to get back,’’ she said.

“For me, it is about the horses. They are beautiful, gentle animals. They are incredibly intelligent and will try to tell you when something is wrong.

“Most of them love affection and they all respond to a bit of kindness.’’

There’s an old saying in racing that trainers never retire when they have a promising young horse in the stable – and Joseph reckons they have another talented horse coming through the ranks.

“We won a couple of races the other day with two first starters, Snowy and Sun ‘N’ Sand,’’ she revealed.

“Snowy cost only $4,000 and she will win more races but Sun ‘N’ Sand is a horse I think has a big future.

“She is by Pride Of Dubai, who is the sire of Pride Of Jenni and Bella Nipotina. If she turns out half as good as them, that will keep me going for a while!”

Originally published as Trailblazing trainer Barbara Joseph has sights on 2024 Big Dance with Zouatica