Youngest trainer with youngest horse in the fight for world’s richest turf race

Gun three-year-old Giga Kick is a real contender, and winning The Everest would be a game changer for trainer Clayton Douglas.

Sydney trainer Joe Pride with nine-year-old sprinter Eduardo, one of the biggest threats to Nature Strip in The Everest, at his Warwick Farm stables. Picture: John Feder

Rags to riches types, the old and the young are fighting for the $15m prizemoney in the world’s richest horse race, The Everest, at Sydney’s Randwick racecourse today.

Sydney is full to the brim, with many hotels and restaurants booked out and A-list stars ­expected to attend despite the threat of ongoing rain.

While the big money is on ­Nature Strip – an eight-year-old chestnut trained by Chris Waller with his own Instagram page – and the Joe Pride-trained nine-year-old Eduardo, the gun three-year-old Giga Kick is a real contender at $20.

Winning The Everest would be a game changer for Clayton Douglas, who started training horses only two years ago and travelled up from Melbourne in the horse truck with Giga Kick.

“It would be the biggest thing that’s happened to me in my life,” says Douglas at Giga Kick’s temporary home at Randwick.

“I’m under no illusions that it’s a superstar race, but to win would be unbelievable.”

It certainly would. The youngest trainer with the youngest horse is in the fight for the world’s richest turf race.

Trainer Clayton Douglas with three-year-old Giga Kick. Picture: John Feder

The 27-year old Douglas began training only in August 2020 after realising that remaining a jockey would be too hard after a growth spurt to just shy of six foot.

Coming from a racing family – his father and uncle are trainers – meant that Douglas stepped easily into the role.

He’d known Giga Kick’s owner and breeder Jonathan Munz since he could remember, and had ridden trackwork at his Pinecliff training facility as a 14-year-old, before going on to win a race for him on Super Seth. Munz gave him Giga Kick as one of his first to train.

“He’s a ripper of a horse, quiet and kind, just the right three-year-old to bring to Sydney,” says Douglas.

If he wins, Douglas takes home $620,000 as the trainer, which would help him expand on the 24 horses he now has in work.

It’s such a big figure that even though trainers are allowed to bet – unlike jockeys – he doesn’t see the point.

“There’s not much point when I can already earn that much (prize)money,” he says.

Right in the slot

The Everest is a sprint run using a slot system, whereby people buy the right to run a horse then negotiate with horse owners for the opportunity to use that slot and divvy up the prizemoney between them.

Giga Kick is running in a slot owned by James Harron Bloodstock, and Harron hopes Douglas will be the one to bring the Everest prizemoney back to his connections, having won it in the inaugural race in 2017 with Redzel.

“Winning it in the first year was a big deal and we are surely due for a top-up,” Harron jokes.

“Giga Kick is a wee bit out of the box but it would be an amazing story for Clayton,” he adds.

The three-year-old, along with rival colt Jacquinot, carries 53kg in the race, which is 5.5kg less than Nature Strip and will be an advantage on the wet track.

Fame at a cost

Judging by Nature Strip’s extremely short odds, few think he will mind the weight difference.

The experienced chestnut gelding has already taken home $19m in prizemoney, was twice named Australian Champion Racehorse of the Year, and last year won at Royal Ascot before coming home for The Everest.

Mind you, his fame has come at somewhat of a cost – though hopefully the big chestnut doesn’t know it.

The Everest favourite Nature Strip, ridden by jockey James McDonald and trained by Chris Waller, during track work at Rosehill Gardens Racecourse. Picture: Jonathan Ng

Majority owner Rod Lyons says there are “still people waiting for him to fail”, and that expectations of the gelding are so high that he suffers online abuse on the rare occasions he fails to deliver.

“People expect him to be bulletproof, but even Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson got beaten. He is not infallible; all champions get beaten sometimes and people should bear that in mind,” he says.

But The Everest is unlikely to be that time, Lyon thinks.

“Provided there is no absolute track bias or interference he will be very hard to beat,” he says.

Experience counts

The oldest horse in the race, Eduardo, might give it a shake, too. The third favourite is in fine form according to trainer Joe Pride.

“Age is not a factor for this horse,” says Pride. “He wasn’t broken in until he was four and has had 29 starts. It preserved his soundness.”

There is plenty of money in racehorses, but Eduardo’s owners bred him from a $4000 mare, Blushing, to a $5000 sire called Host, and didn’t have the horse broken in at three because they had no money for training fees.

He’s repaid that in kind, having won $6m in prizemoney, and Pride thinks he could even be back for The Everest in 2023.

“I’d love to think he will be back again next year,” says Pride. “He is tough and experienced.”

If experience counts then punters should not rule out jockey Kerrin McEvoy, who has won this race three of the five times it’s been run – taking $310,000 each time – and is this year on $51 longshot Shades Of Rose.

His mount is the only mare in the race, which may bother punters given in its five runnings it has been won four times by a gelding and once by a colt.

Hottest tickets in town

A big difference with these sprinters contesting The Everest compared with the Melbourne Cup, is that they race more often than distance horses and therefore are better known to punters.

Entain Australia chief executive Dean Shannon says there is no doubt The Everest is a “hot ticket” in wagering and hospitality.

“The build-up and intrigue around the make-up of the field is unequalled and personally as a punter I think The Everest is now unequivocally the greatest sprint race in the world,” Shannon says. “It has never failed to deliver in terms of interest and excitement and Peter V’landys and his team at Racing NSW deserve enormous credit. There is no doubt The Everest has very quickly become one of, if not the, highlights of the Australian racing calendar.”

Fashion stylist Suzy Eskander says she is feeling the buzz with some labels telling her their brands are seeing a 300 per cent increase in sales compared to last year.

“There is a definite hype in the air with more interest than ever in the Everest and around the streets in Sydney,” Eskander says.

“I style celebrities each week and have had multiple dresses and millinery pieces selling out straight away after they have been worn. Millinery pieces and dresses recently worn by Samantha Armytage have sold out within days of her wearing them, with women on the hunt for the perfect racewear outfit.”

Party time

Hotels and restaurants are also reaping the benefits of The Everest, with bookings at Crown Sydney high. Presumably, though, most places would make room for an Everest winner.

“Partying,” is what Douglas says he will be doing if Giga Kick trumps his older rivals. Crown Sydney would be a big step up from the friend’s spare bed he is currently sleeping on.

As for Lyons, he says he’ll be having fun either way.

“Win lose or draw we will be partying long and hard,” he says, as he prepares for the race that’s got Australia and the world talking.