Memorial service for Melbourne Cup-winning trainer Mike Moroney to be held at Flemington on Tuesday morning

Mike Moroney’s fellow trainers in the “middle hut” at Flemington pay one more tribute to the trainer before farewelling the Melbourne Cup-winning horseman on Tuesday morning.

A memorial service for the Melbourne Cup-winning trainer Mike Moroney will be held at Flemington on Tuesday. Picture: Michael Klein

“I trained the mother”.

The four words always attracted a reaction in the “middle hut” during trackwork at Flemington, the racecourse that will host Tuesday’s memorial service for the Melbourne Cup-winning trainer.

Moroney’s contemporaries always took the cue to pile in with jokes at his expense while the renowned horseman chuckled along in the corner he made his own after setting up his Flemington stable in the mid-1990s.

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Winning races is one thing but it’s the simplest of human quirks of repetition that provide the type of momentary release of pressure that helps the protagonists cope with the daily demands of one of sport’s toughest professions, that of a racehorse trainer.

Wayne Hawkes, one of the main joke makers when Moroney uttered his catchphrase, said there was actually a definite trend behind the New Zealand-born trainer’s throwaway line.

“Some of those broodmares don’t actually do the job but it’s funny how many of Mike’s mares actually threw good ones,” Hawkes said.

“It was actually a trait of some trainers.”

Wayne Hawkes (left) and Mike Moroney (right) spent thousands of hours over more than 25 years overseeing their respective teams at Flemington trackwork.

Moroney was establishing himself in Melbourne when Hawkes started overseeing the then huge Jack and Bob Ingham-owned Crown Lodge operation which later became Darley then Godolphin after Sheikh Mohammed bought the racing powerhouse in 2008.

Hawkes and his father John and brother Michael have since run a Flemington stable as part of a two-state business, meaning he spent many hours metres from Moroney.

“We sat eight feet from each other since 1998, so we knew each other pretty well,” Hawkes said.

“We had some good times.

“Another one that always made us laugh was, ‘I was the underbidder on that’ when a horse won a good race.

“It’s amazing how many good horses he was the underbidder on. He was the underbidder on plenty of good ones.

“He never mentioned that he was the underbidder on the slow ones.”

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Moroney’s racing manager Anthony Feroce was never far from Moroney’s side at either trackwork or the races.

Feroce spent time working in New Zealand after completing his racing education at the famed Marcus Oldham college, joining Moroney’s stable soon after the trainer’s 2000 Melbourne Cup win with Brew.

Feroce said Moroney taught him many lessons about horses and racing but amazed him with his gentle nature, even when talking about horses.

“Most of us were there Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday for gallop mornings and on Fridays for the jumpouts and at the races most days as well,” Feroce said.

“He was a very logical man and a very calm person.

Trainer Mike Moroney (left) and his racing manager Anthony Feroce (right) spent more than 20 years working together, becoming great friends in the process.

“As his former training partner Andrew Scott said, he was the same about his horses as he was about people, he never had a bad word to say about his horses either.

“He would always look at ways to try and improve them. It was the same with people, he never saw the bad about them.

“I’d say ‘come on Mike, this horse is a bit slow, we might have to move it on’, he’d say ‘no, no we haven’t tried everything so let’s do this or try that’.

“He just never spoke badly about horses or people.”

While Moroney gave daily indications of his gift of reading the minds and physical attributes of the animals in his care, Feroce said his mate always had time for a debate.

The subjects were wide and varied but many centred on footy or New Zealand’s sporting prowess.

The pair even had different names for each other in a bid to get one up in the joke stakes.

“He called me Anton and I called him Denis, as his full name is Michael Denis Moroney,” Feroce said.

“We used to have a lot of fun and a lot of banter.

Mike Moroney (left) celebrating his 2000 Melbourne Cup win with Brew alongside jockey Kerrin McEvoy (centre) and his brother Paul (right), who also part-owned the stayer.

“He’d go on with stuff like ‘Collingwood supporters have got no teeth’ and he used to give it to me about things like that.

“I used to give it to him about the Kiwis because he was so proud about their sport and I used to always tell him, ‘New Zealand is a third-rate country’ and that would always set him off.”

The trainers that oversee trackwork from the “middle hut” say it hasn’t been the same, nor will it be since Moroney’s passing last Thursday week, but the lessons – either equine, or social – won’t be forgotten.

“I’m the last original now. Mike was there before me,” Hawkes said.

“The best one he taught me was to have one glass of pinot and one glass of water as well … and he drank a stack of water.

“We need to either write a book or had the cameras in there.

“We would have had the best Big Brother show ever.”

Moroney’s memorial service will start at 11:30am on Tuesday before his final farewell in New Zealand in the coming days.

Originally published as Memorial service for Melbourne Cup-winning trainer Mike Moroney to be held at Flemington on Tuesday morning