Trainer John Wigginton back on his game after taking time out

Rockhampton trainer John Wigginton is glad he hasn’t been held to account for his quip that if he returned to training after an extended break he would walk naked around Callaghan Park.

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He’s not sure whether it was the heat, the dust, the noise or the bloody flies, but five-time Rockhampton premiership winner John Wigginton finally decided that the chance to train yet another star galloper was a better path to follow than the seemingly endless trail of grass clippings he was leaving in his wake.

At Rockhampton’s Callaghan Park racetrack, the former lawnmower man now has 10 horses in work, flying around the same loop where in 1912 the American daredevil Wizard Stone, once flew a rickety Bleriot monoplane in a race with a taxi in one of the first feats of aviation recorded in Queensland.

The best of Wigginton’s horses is his filly Better Reflection, a $20,000 bargain buy from the Magic Millions sales. She has won three races from six starts and Wigginton is aiming her towards the QTIS Jewel meeting on the Gold Coast in March.

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Trainer John Wigginton is enjoying success with his bargain buy filly Better Reflection.

Wigginton won five Rockhampton training premierships between 2003 and 2007 but in 2010 gave the game away, disillusioned and despondent.

He was frustrated over the protracted and controversial redevelopment of Callaghan Park.

His team had dwindled from 23 at the height of his career to just six as reconstruction works costing more than $6.5 million on both the sand and grass tracks in Rockhampton meandered at a snail’s pace.

Race meetings were transferred, prizemoney cut and, training schedules overhauled.

Wigginton walked out of his stables and went to work for a friend who had a contract slashing grass beside the local rail line corridors but when that work began to dry up he started his lawnmowing business.

“I mowed lawns for about three years but it’s hot work out there and I didn’t want to be doing it when I was 70,’’ Wigginton said. “A few blokes were asking me when I’d get another horse, so I started training again.

“I had told a few racing officials that if I ever came back to training I would walk around Callaghan Park naked, but lucky they haven’t held me to that.’’

Four years ago, the now 61-year-old bought a filly at the Capricornia Yearling Sale, paying $13,000 for a chestnut filly by a good horse he once trained Man of Illusion.

John Wigginton took a break from training in 2010 and started a lawnmowing business. Picture: Nigel Hallett

A son of Encosta De Lago, Man of Illusion was unplaced on debut at Geelong at three when trained by Mick Price but found much more success under Wigginton at Rockhampton.

In the space of a month in 2005 he won three races at Callaghan Park over 1200m.

He went on to win at Mackay before scoring a six length-victory at Doomben over 1110m.

After bleeding during that Brisbane win, the horse was flown to America where, in seven starts, he established himself as a crack grass track sprinter.

He won the Group 3 $126,000 Aegon Turf Sprint over 1000m at Kentucky’s Churchill Downs and finished second in Texas in the Lone Star Park Turf Sprint (1000m).

He came back to stand at Stewart Park Stud at Alton Downs north of Rockhampton but died earlier this year.

“The stud master didn’t know what happened,” Wigginton said. “He fed him in the morning and came back and he was on the ground, dead … maybe a snake bite or more likely a heart attack.”

Wigginton grew up on a dairy farm at Parkhurst in Rockhampton’s north and did a mechanic’s apprenticeship. For a while he ran a Caltex Roadhouse on the highway north of the city.

He dabbled in pacers but says when harness racing began to dwindle in Rockhampton “the natural progression was to go the thoroughbreds’’.

“I had a couple of blokes train for me for a while,’’ he said, “then I thought I’d have a go myself.’’

Wigginton quickly rose to prominence after taking out his trainer’s licence in 1999 with his first runner Dark Eyed Lady.

His reputation rocketed with the astute buying of Victorian horses and his stars included Nessuno, Skymaker, She’s Decent, Man Of illusion and Evil Snip. He won the 2001 Rocky Cup with Skymaker and the 2006 Rocky Newmarket with She’s Decent.

Nessuno’s win in the $176,700 Eye Liner Stakes (Listed) at Ipswich in 2005 will always be a highlight.

“I was lucky that I got some good horses from Victoria,’’ he said. “They race left-handed down there and a lot of them don’t like going the other way in Queensland but I got some that didn’t mind the change.’’

Better Reflection knows her way to the finish line.

“We went to the Magic Millions to buy a horse by Better Than Ready,’’ he said. “That was Part A. Part B was that she was a good sort, plenty of length, plenty of leg under her and a really good walker.’’

Better Reflection has been a good money-spinner for John Wigginton, earning almost $250,000 in prizemoney. Picture: AAP

The filly won her debut by almost six lengths in Rockhampton in November 2018.

Better Reflection has placed second in her last two starts, in the QTIS 3YO Handicap at Eagle Farm on October 19 and in The Surf Club Mooloolaba QTIS 3YO Fillies Handicap at the Sunshine Coast on November 16.

But in September, after a spell of 244 days brought about by surgery to remove spurs on her knees, she made a stunning comeback to lead all the way in beating the highly rated Gem Of Scotland at Doomben.

That was her third win in four starts with her only defeat coming in the Magic Millions Classic at the Gold Coast in January when she was injured.

“She’s certainly a very smart horse,’’ Wigginton said, “and the thing about this game is that you just never know when you’re going to find an absolute champion.

“I have very high hopes for her.’’