Winx, and we’ll miss her
Lot 329 at the 2013 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sales looked good but she was nothing special.
The horse with no name was being paraded at the 2013 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sales. She was agitated. Fractious. Get this bloody collar off me.
The auctioneer cleared his throat and delivered his spiel. “By Street Cry from Vegas Showgirl! Here’s the filly now!”
Like an inquisitive Shakespearean character, he asked the simplest of questions. What for it?
The horse with no name was walking so quickly they should have put the clock on her. Lot 329, she was. The auctioneer wanted a starting price of $100,000. He didn’t get it. He begged for something close. “Eighty? Fifty? Forty? Forty it is! Forty bid! Four-four-forty now! We might get 50!”
He got 60. Seventy. Eighty. All done? No! Ninety! $100,000! One-ten! Lot 329 dropped her head and you imagined her shoulders stooped as she kicked the dirt. A look around the room. That’s all I’m worth? A lousy $110,000?
The bidding was lame. Lame enough to be taken out the back and shot. It reached $230,000. Sold! And off she went, this horse with no name and no obvious physical gifts. This horse who gave her owners and trainer no inkling of the 24 Group I triumphs, the 32 straight victories and the $24 million in prizemoney to come. No hint that whatever her name became, it would be recognised from Sydney to Shackleton and all parts between. She elicited no expectation of becoming another Phar Lap or Don Bradman or Cathy Freeman or Ian Thorpe.
Lot 329 was bought by Peter Tighe’s Magic Bloodstock syndicate. Tighe had planned to bid no more than $200,000. He told The Australian this week: “Our agent made recommendations about the horses that had the profiles we were looking for. He gave us a price indication of what he thought those horses were worth. We had about 50 on a shortlist that we were looking at.
“I’d seen her before the sale. I thought she was nice-looking, but she was just one of dozens we looked at, and I don’t claim that she was a big standout. She was broad, athletic, good-looking; but most importantly, she fitted our budget.”
Magic in her eyes
Tighe’s partners in Lot 329 were Richard Treweeke and Debbie Kepitis, the daughter of chicken king Bob Ingham, racing royalty.
She said of her first pre-sale sighting of the horse with no name: “She wasn’t a standout. But she had a very kind eye. She was intelligent. They’re like people. They look at you and you can see something there. Some horses look away from you. She held her eye and looked straight at you. She didn’t shy away. I liked that.”
Tighe agrees, but adds: “It wouldn’t have mattered if she had a kind eye or not. If she wasn’t in our budget, we wouldn’t have bought her. A lot of horses have nice eyes and nice arses and nice heads and nice everythings, but if they’re going to cost you a million dollars you’re not going to buy them. We paid more than we planned to and it’s obviously been worth it. But it works both ways.
“Believe me, I’ve bought a lot of slow ones.”
What’s in a name
Lot 329 needed a name. What for it? Treweeke came up with Winx. If you gave a Vegas showgirl a wink, and she winked back, the rest was history. Why the X?
“We raced a horse previously that was called Midnight Minx,” Tighe says. “M-I-N-X. So I guess W-I-N-X was in keeping with that. I don’t even particularly know why we did it. But it looked bloody good on paper with an X so we went with it.
“It’s probably a bit unique. So is she. But to be honest, I think it wouldn’t have mattered what we called her. After 32 wins, any name would be sounding good by now.
“At the time, it just seemed very insignificant. A bit of paperwork to get through. But as time goes on, you’re probably thankful you’ve come up with a good one.
“When a horse wins five races in a row and then 10 races and then 20 races, the name starts sounding a hell of a lot better than it did when it started.”
The 87-year-old Treweeke’s most colourful version of events: “Well, she’s out of a mare called Vegas Showgirl … and if you’ve ever been to Vegas and go to see a couple of shows you realise there’s some pretty good sorts up there … you know, cheeky bums and lovely tits, and that sort of thing. If you like them you wink … and if she likes you, she winks back!”
Kepitis says: “Richard was great. He came up with about 25 names, but only about five of them you could get. A lot of names had already been used. We sort of voted on it but didn’t really vote. It was more a general agreement that we liked this name. Winx. Short and sweet.
“Richard said he didn’t care. He said any of the final five on our list would suit him. Peter did the paperwork and that was that. Vegas Showgirl was the mum and Richard said they all wink at you in Vegas. I think the name came with an X because he got a bit of an X-rated wink!”
Early losses
To the racetrack. Chris Waller was the trainer. She had four different jockeys in her first 10 starts. She was still agitated. Still fractious. Four wins, a few placings, glimpses of brilliance, difficult to manage, a bit up herself. Still no standout.
Nothing to write home about. Nothing to write a blank cheque for. Nothing to write movies and books and historical records about.
She was entered in the 2015 Sunshine Coast Guineas at Caloundra. She was running stone motherless last in a congested 18-horse race. She overcame a 15-length deficit to win by two lengths. Extraordinary.
Larry Cassidy was the jockey. He knew Hugh Bowman was about to get the full-time gig. Cassidy told Bowman he might be throwing his leg over a good one. Thirty-two consecutive wins later, she chases a 33rd in a farewell on Saturday that promises all the romance and emotion and affection that only the greatest race horses can conjure.
Toughest win
One victory in this four-year victory march has been the true stuff of legend. The race she has nearly lost. The race in which she has been a flared nostril from ending her streak at 17. The race in which she faced her moment of truth.
Royal Randwick, August 19, 2017. They jump. Away! But Winx stays in her gate. Still agitated. Still fractious. When she does appear, she’s airborne like someone jumping out of bed too late.
The race caller: “The mare’s missed the start by four lengths! In a sensation, the mare’s missed the start!”
She’s John Landy over the same 1600m distance in 1956. She’s at the back of the pack. Bowman keeps his nerve and trusts his John Landy and she’s trusting him. Bowman’s John Landy is on the outside and she’s zooming past six of the other seven horses and now there’s only Foxplay to beat. What for it?
The caller’s on his feet: “Winx is down the outside! It’s going to get desperate! Yes! She got up!”
It has been heart-attack stuff — 20cm in it. Twenty centimetres between a half-decent career and a historic one. “Her head, and her heart,” Bowman says of what no one has seen coming in Lot 329.
Career finish line
Here’s the mare now. What for it? She won’t have to stand out the front of Royal Randwick to sell tickets to her farewell. A horse possessed. A nation obsessed.
There have been early moments of struggle. There have been moments of ruthless dominance. There have been moments of intense emotion and wonder.
Her fourth Cox Plate triumph has been unprecedented and unforgettable: 38,000 fans screaming themselves you-know-what.
There have been triumphant moments and nerve-racking moments but it ain’t over yet. The Queen Elizabeth Stakes will begin at 3.05pm on Saturday.
In her most recent win, in the George Ryder Stakes, you could swear she looked at the crowd down the straight. You could swear it.
The moments before the horse with a household name has her farewell run — the moments during it and the moments after — they may become the greatest moments of all.
Lot 329 is going, going, nearly gone.
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Making 33 our next magic number
Don Bradman’s Test average. Phar Lap’s rampage at Flemington. The calendar-year grand slams of Rod Laver and Margaret Court. Australia II breaking the 132-year America’s Cup hoodoo. Kieren Perkins’s victory at the Atlanta Olympics as if he had a winged keel of his own. Ian Thorpe at the Sydney Olympics. Cathy Freeman at the Sydney Olympics. John Aloisi’s penalty to get the Socceroos to the World Cup. Black Caviar’s unbeaten trot.
The greatest and most celebrated accomplishments in Australian sport — and now, Winx.
She should win a 33rd straight race at Royal Randwick on Saturday. That number, 33, would become the most distinguished digits since Bradman’s 99.94.
But, while Bradman’s duck in his final Test innings was a groaning disappointment, Winx has nothing to lose. Not even a loss will be much of a loss. Bradman had the chance to finish with an average of 100 but Winx’s record streak of 32 cannot be lost. It is written in ink, written in stone.
Criminals tried to shoot Phar Lap after he lumbered through his trackwork on the morning of November 1, 1930. There shall be no such complication for Winx on Saturday; even the crooks are on her side.
Phar Lap was the equine Bradman. His four wins in one week after he dodged a bullet, including the Melbourne Cup, would never be matched. He won 14 consecutive races in his pomp and 37 of his 51 starts.
Winx’s long-term record is superior. She’s unbeaten for four years in a sport where animals are animals and injuries, illness and rotten luck are common. She has won 36 of her 42 races and if she salutes at Royal Randwick, she’ll finish with a winning strike rate of 86 per cent. Phar Lap’s was 72.5. The mare is closer to Bradman.
Black Caviar never lost. But she raced less. And she did not conjure the same public affection.
Winx sits on the highest table of Australian sport for impact and performance.
As her trainer, Chris Waller, told The Australian: “She’s an elite athlete. She knows when to switch on, how to look after herself, how to compete, how to rise to an occasion.
“It really has been quite a remarkable thing to witness.”
Will Swanton