‘It was an incredible moment’: Max Presnell reflects on Super Impose’s amazing win in 1991 Epsom Handicap

Ahead of Saturday’s Callander-Presnell, racing journalists Ken Callander and Max Presnell nominate their best wins over the famous mile course at Royal Randwick.

It’s fitting that the race named after Sydney’s legendary racing media identities Ken Callander and Max Presnell is over the famous Randwick mile course.

“I reckon this is the best and fairest course and distance in Australia, if not the world, the Randwick mile,” Presnell said.

“They always talk about wide barriers but they don’t come into play over the Randwick mile, the best horse will win.”

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Ahead of Saturday’s Group 2 $1 million Callander-Presnell (1600m) at Royal Randwick, both were asked their favourite memories of watching races over the mile course for more than 60 years – and each landed on the same horse, Super Impose.

“I think it has to be Super Impose,” Callander said.

“For that horse to win four successive Doncasters and Epsoms (1990-91) – they were our races when I was coming through – was out of this world.”

Presnell felt Super Impose’s fourth Randwick mile win in the 1991 Epsom was the most memorable.

“Super Impose and the fourth Randwick mile he won was an incredible moment when you think of the weight he had, the ride, it all blended in,” Presnell said. “It was the course and distance, and a great racehorse.”

• ‘It doesn’t make a hell of a lot of sense’: Champion status at stake

The third renewal of the Callander-Presnell certainly doesn’t boast a miler of Super Impose’s quality but there are some promising three-year-olds in the field with Anode the early TAB Fixed Odds favourite at $2.60 and Just Party pressing at $3.

Callander and Presnell were masters of their craft, never short of a word, and part of the furniture in the Sydney press room for more than six decades.

They have lived through and reported on periods of enormous change in the sport but perhaps none more so than the evolution of the Sydney spring carnival.

There was a time, not so long ago, that Callander and Presnell would pack their bags after the Epsom-Metropolitan October long weekend in Sydney and head to Melbourne for the spring carnival.

Racing journalists Ken Callander (left) and Max Presnell. Picture: Supplied

• Time right for Price weapon at Randwick

Callander said the introduction of The Everest in 2017 was long overdue.

“I think it is fabulous,” Callander said when asked his thoughts on the 49,117 crowd that went to The Everest last week.

“I often used to write in my column we let Melbourne have the spring to themselves and they didn’t let us have the autumn, they kept encroaching on Sydney’s autumn.

“But The Everest was great, the Golden Eagle will be good, they have even built up Melbourne Cup Day at Randwick without trying to take over the Melbourne Cup.

“Having The Everest and Caulfield Cup on the same day promoted betting turnover and had everyone talking racing.”

49,117 people singing Sweet Caroline.

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Presnell still writes a blog each week called “The Latest with Max Presnell” and devoted much of his latest column to the evolution of the Sydney spring carnival.

“I was talking to (leading Melbourne form analyst) Peter Ellis at Randwick last Saturday about the spring,” Presnell said.

“Peter said his first Caulfield Cup was 1966 when Galilee won, that was the first Caulfield Cup I covered, and Peter was saying how far Sydney has come.

“To think they had twice as many people at Randwick last Saturday as they had at Caulfield on Caulfield Cup day is mind-boggling.”

The two revered racing journalists will be at Royal Randwick on Saturday and be part of the presentation following the running of the Callander-Presnell, unlike the “old days” when both would be at Moonee Valley reporting on the Cox Plate.

Callander didn’t hesitate when asked his favourite Cox Plate memories.

“Gunsynd was such a people’s favourite, he was a Queenslander trained in Sydney and all of Australia loved him, and when he won the Cox Plate (1972) I think that was the makings of the race,” Callander said.

“Makybe Diva winning (2005), the Winx years (2015-18) and the three-year-olds like Octagonal (1995) and So You Think (2009) which add a lot to the race.”

• ‘Injustice not to run’ Via Sistina in Cox Plate

Callander has Via Sistina winning the Cox Plate on Saturday while Presnell is in Godolphin colt Broadsiding’s corner.

“I think the gamble is Broadsiding,” Presnell said. “I remember So You Think, I backed it in the Caulfield Guineas, and it was a very similar run by Broadsiding.”

This is the final Cox Plate to be run at the old Moonee Valley track which Presnell said has added so much to the mystique of the race.

“The Cox Plate is probably the best race to watch in the world because you are so close to the action,” he said. “Moonee Valley is a goat track but it brings the best out in horses.

“When you talk about memories, Makybe Diva five and six wide coming around the bend, you think of when Bill Collins said Kingston Town can’t win, the Bonecrusher-Our Waverley Star clash, then Dulcify, the just come back to you.”

Pressnell, a four-year-old gelding by Press Statement named after the journalist, makes his debut in a Scone maiden on Friday.

“I had a look at him when I was in Mudgee about a month ago and he’s a good type,” Presnell said. “It looks like he is going to run but for how long and how far we will find out on Friday.”

Originally published as ‘It was an incredible moment’: Max Presnell reflects on Super Impose’s amazing win in 1991 Epsom Handicap