Life As I Know It (24 page)

Father Brendan gave Dad The Sacrament of the Sick. He heard Dad's confession, and he comforted him. He could see how low Dad was, but he also had every faith in the doctors' prognosis that Dad would pull through. I don't know what Father Brendan said—no doubt he prayed with him—but Dad really got a lift from spending time with him.

At the same time, the doctors had worked through Dad's gastrointestinal issues and he started to feel more comfortable. He was over the worst and improving. We were all so relieved.

Later that night Dad rang me and I couldn't believe the change. He just kept saying what a lovely man Father Brendan was.

‘I want you to thank Father Brendan,' he said to me. ‘I mean, really thank him.'

I visited Dad every day and it was so hard to leave him. But he continued to recover and soon became desperate to go home. Eventually he did. I spent two weeks at Home with him.
Everyone else was busy with work, with kids and with just getting things done. And I wanted to be with him.

That time had a huge impact on me. Riding was not so important right then. It was part of me, but I realised my father and my family were even more important. I will never forget those days. Things felt so clear. I understood what mattered the most. I knew we were a racing family, and so much of who we are is expressed in our love of horses and of racing, but we are a family first. And I saw, even more so, that Dad had been our great example.

As Dad improved I returned to the track and, being more relaxed about my riding, I started to find form. I notched up quite a few winners. I still did the work, still did the preparation, still thought through the tactics, but I was willing to let things unfold. I was more accepting.

I felt, yet again, that things happen for a reason.

I had a really good run through the first half of 2015. The Warrnambool carnival—three days of terrific racing, and a lot of partying in early May—proved to be very successful for the Weir camp. We all loved it. The Warrnambool region is perfect for horses. It has the beach as well as the lush countryside.

As well as the stables at Ballarat, Darren has a complex at a little spot called Wangoom, just outside of Warrnambool. It's dairy country, as it rains a lot there and it's green. A lot of Irish people settled in the area—probably because it seems like home to them. Some of the names of the people and the places there are so Irish. There's a town called Killarney, the river is the Moyne. There are country homes that make you feel like you're in Ireland. There are stone fences and Catholic spires. The region produces big families. Many of these people have been involved in racing.

Understandably then, the racing carnival is one of the most significant annual events in the life of the town and it includes some of the biggest jumps races in Australia, as well as the Warrnambool Cup and the Wangoom Sprint. People come from all over to punt and party and catch up with old friends, and are not disappointed. Darren has always loved it, and has had a lot of success there. He also loves the craic and can usually be found in the Whalers Hotel in the wee hours, rum and Coke in hand, chatting to someone. Everyone knows him. It's a bit harder for us jockeys. We have to behave ourselves.

That week Darren won the Warrnambool Cup with Tall Ship, and our resident Irishman jockey, Johnny Allen, saluted on Regina Coeli for Ciaron Maher, a Warrnambool trainer, in the Great Eastern Steeplechase. Jarrod McLean had a good time of it. I rode a double on the first day. The one disappointment was that John Richards' Lake Sententia didn't go so well for me in the Wangoom.

One of the attractions of Warrnambool was that it was a good chance to spend some time with the crew from Darren's two stables and, of course, to see Prince. Maddie was based at the Warrnambool stables; she's a Warrnambool girl. She'd filled me in on Prince's progress while he was spelling.

I did a lot of riding through the winter but I was getting increasingly tired. I knew I needed a break. It had taken me some years to realise that we jockeys need balance in our lives. As a young jockey I'd tried to push through the exhaustion. But the physical and psychological demands are relentless, and draining, and I'd worked out my suspensions and falls have often come when I was low, not as lively and alert as I needed to be. But I'd learned to read the signs and knew when it was time to get right away. Perhaps my falls happened for a reason, so I could learn to take a break. So I organised with some friends to travel to North America.

I travelled with Kelly and Rosie Myers, two Kiwi jockeys I'd got to know because their uncle is a good friend of Dad's and the two families have remained close, and their partners. It was my first trip to the States. We started in Vegas! Then San Diego, Mexico, then north to Canada. The couples then went home and I went to the Calgary Stampede. I hired a car and drove to Vancouver, staying in B&Bs along the way. I like travelling on my own as I always meet a lot of people, and love chatting to them, hearing their stories, like Dad does. I spent a fair bit of time wondering how Dad was going. He was getting better, but he'd had a tough time.

I was looking forward to the Spring. I had a strong feeling that good things were going to happen, and I was going to give myself every chance of being ready. I had to stay fit and not pack on the kilos. I made a deal with myself: party as hard as you like but you must train properly for an hour every day.

I was doing beautifully until I got to Canada, where I soon became addicted to chai lattes and these great raspberry and white choclate cookies they have there. I came home through Bali, where I caught up with a couple of jockey mates, Nikita Berriman and Holly McKechnie. We spent a week together and then I couldn't face going home just yet, so I extended my stay for another three days, catching up with Maree and Brett and their two kids, Georgia and Thomas, who were there at the same time.

Therese does my brother Patrick's race bookings. She texted me while I was in Bali: ‘Do you want to ride Percy On Parade on Monday at Swan Hill?'

‘Are you joking?' I replied. I warned them I wasn't fit even though I was keen and said yes. When I saw it was 2100 metres I freaked. I couldn't last that long. Six weeks away is a long time between races. Too long. Although I'd regularly done pilates and yoga and a lot of training while I was away, I was far from race condition.

Percy ran fifth but at least I'd had a ride and he'd had his chance, despite my lack of race fitness. Patrick was going to get stuck into me, I knew.

I was trying to get back into it but I wasn't getting any trackwork at Caulfield, so I went to Sydney to work for Gai Waterhouse for a few days. After initially coming home weighing 56.5 kilograms, I was 58 kilograms. I rode in a lot of trials, and worked with a personal trainer and we did a lot of traditional fitness stuff: medicine ball, boxing everything. I was eating more healthily by then and drinking lots of water. I always think positively so I felt it was only a matter of time.

Therese booked me in for five rides at Mildura, the lightest weight being 54 kilograms. No problem. I didn't check my weight for three days, I was working hard and eating healthily but when I got on the scales on the Saturday afternoon I was 59.5. I couldn't believe it. I had to lose 5 kilos in a couple of days to ride the horse half a kilogram over. Not a good start to my return.

As it turned out I was carrying a lot of fluid so I was able to make 54 kilograms without too much trouble.

I won my first ride but I'd had it by the end. I let him run well past the line because I couldn't breathe and I had to get back for the interview with the broadcaster. I felt I was back into it, but I was struggling physically.

Prince was still in Warrnambool. With not much happening at Caulfield I was happy to ride for Darren wherever he needed me to gallop his horses, all around the countryside. I did many kilometres in the car, to Camperdown, Casterton, Coleraine, Terang, Hamilton, Donald, all about three hours or more away. I especially travelled so as to ride Prince whenever I could. It's often a long way to go for a five-minute ride, one minute of which really matters. But it was all about building the relationship between me and him.

I was next booked to gallop him at Warrnambool in early August, and hadn't seen Prince since the carnival in May. He had turned six on 1 August, when all horses have their birthday. When I first saw him he looked absolutely magnificent.

‘Wow, Prince,' I said. ‘You've grown up.'

His head was mature, his body was mature, and he walked like a mature horse. I was smiling and laughing to myself. It was like seeing a puppy that's suddenly become a dog. In that moment I felt such affection and respect for Prince. Then when I was patting him he put his head into my chest, like an old friend.

Given he was coming back from yet another major injury, I was concerned about how he'd go on the track. But that day at Warrnambool he worked just as he looked, like a strong thorough-bred racehorse.

I was so excited for him. Darren wasn't there. He had warned me that he doubted Prince would be the horse I'd seen the previous Spring, but he looked better, he was behaving better, and he galloped fluently and powerfully. I couldn't get out my phone quickly enough.

‘I reckon he's come back better than he was,' I said. Darren would not believe me.

‘I've got to see him myself,' he said.

At that point I knew Prince's campaign would be planned with one trophy in mind: the 2015 Melbourne Cup.

It was coming towards the end of footy season, and the better horses had started to return to racing in preparation for the Spring. They'd enjoyed their time in the paddock, eating as they pleased, getting chubby and hairy, before hitting the training track. It's a well-planned process. Trainers start campaigns by giving horses
light work and then they're put on a program of trackwork, which gets the horse finer and fitter. Horses competing in the distance events later in the Spring, like the Melbourne Cup, resume in shorter races, and these are part of a horse's path to fitness. The trick is to get them absolutely peaking on the day of the race being targetted—the Caulfield Cup, the Moonee Valley Cup, the Cox Plate and the Melbourne Cup.

Bart Cummings was a genius at this; you can't ask more of a trainer than that. Darren Weir had built a reputation as a brilliant trainer, too. He knows his horses so well. He knows exactly where they are in their preparation and what they need to do next. He has the combination of science and art, the point at which rational thinking and gut feeling intersect to get a horse right.

Prince of Penzance was definitely a Melbourne Cup horse. He had the breeding, and he had the ability. His record was pretty good. He had the character. He was tough. Maddie always told me how tough he was, and how he just needed to stay sound. She rode him every day and she knew what a competitor he was, what a fighter he was. But he was coming back from major surgery, and the three other bone chip operations. Could D.K. Weir get him racing at his best? And would his best qualify him for the Melbourne Cup anyway?

For over 150 years people around Australia have dreamed of owning or training or riding a horse that wins the Melbourne Cup. The chances are ridiculously small, so you have to do everything in your power to give yourself the very best chance, to do whatever you can to make it happen.

That's how I was thinking. That's why I was determined to drive thousands of kilometres to the bush tracks to make sure I rode him at every gallop. Not too many people had noticed him and I don't think anyone had the belief in him that I did. When I told some of the owners that I thought we were in with a real chance they
shared my sense of hope, but I don't think they shared my belief. We were one of many doing the same thing. But we had Prince.

He resumed in the Group 1 Memsie Stakes at Caulfield, a 1400-metre race at weight-for-age, meaning the horses carry a set weight depending on the age and gender of the horse. The Memsie attracts a strong field of very classy horses, many of which are targeting the main staying races towards the end of the Spring Carnival. Phar Lap won it in 1931. The champion mares Makybe Diva and Sunline won it. And Manikato took it out in 1982.