Cavanough hopes ‘ugly duckling’ Cerons can shine in Inglis Millennium
The once-in-a-horse’s-lifetime chance at an old-fashioned plunge from the bush may have narrowly come unstuck, but Scone trainer Brett Cavanough feels one-time ugly duckling Cerons (Street Boss) can take the next step in a surprising career in Saturday’s Inglis Millennium (RL, 1100m).
Eyes and ears around Victoria sprung open when Cavanough, a man not known for hating a bet, took a long float trip towards Melbourne last October with his bargain bin colt. He was entered for the Maribyrnong Trial Stakes (Listed, 1000m), an ambitious first-start straight target at Flemington. Cerons, with a four-length second in a Newcastle trial to his name, had been quoted at $201 – and there were only nine horses in the field.
Cavanough had bought Cerons at the Inglis Classic Yearling Sale, which comes up again on Sunday, for $50,000. That made him one of the cheapest Street Boss (Street Cry) yearlings sold in recent years. And he bought him almost accidentally.
“I went to buy a couple of colts, but I couldn’t get near them,” Cavanough said. “I was walking around with my tail between my legs and [Inglis agent] Will Stott asked how I was going, and I said ‘terrible’. He said there were a couple of nice colts coming up.”
One was the son of Street Boss out of the maiden-winning Exceed And Excel (Danehill) mare Sauternes, offered in the ten-horse draft of Classic regulars Golden Grove Stud for Victorian hobby breeder Sean Duke.
Cavanough liked the Exceed And Excel link, and as a timely reminder of the sire, his finest son Anamoe had won yet again on the weekend, in the Apollo Stakes (Gr 2, 1400m). The colt, however, was “a bit of an ugly duckling”, Cavanough felt. Still, he threw in one bid of $50,000 and got him.
In a hitch to the usual script, in time that ugly duckling grew … uglier.
“I brought him home and in the winter he grew a heap of hair, he went a bit sway-backed, and he was just growing in all different parts at different times,” Cavanough said. “My wife Lauren and son Jack took a walk around the farm one day and came back and fair dinkum took the piss clean out of me. They said ‘You’ve bought the ugliest horse in the world’.
“And he was pretty ugly. But I put him in with a bunch of horses, some went sore, some weren’t there, but this bloke just kept putting his head into the bridle, and his head into the feed bin. It all just happened in front of me. He just said, ‘Here I am’. He was a gentleman to do anything with, just a little pro, so I said, ‘Righto bud, well we’ll see where you go’.”
First up, he went to Flemington, at cricket score odds, against the likes of $1.6 million Team Snowden-James Harron colt Bodyguard (I Am Invincible), and Team McEvoy’s Dublin Down (Exceedance).
“Tony McEvoy rang me on the way to the races and said, ‘This has got a smell about it, big guy’,” said Cavanough. He played a straight bat.
He had hoped to run Cerons in Randwick’s Breeders’ Plate (Gr 3, 1000m) on September 30, but “a hiccup with his ID card” meant he couldn’t start, nor be entered in Randwick’s official trials. Instead, the day before the Breeders’ Plate, Cerons was at Newcastle trialling against five older horses.
“I said to [jockey] Mitchell Bell, ‘Just drag him and get him behind them’. Well, there was a tearaway leader, and Mitchell said he circled up to run second as easy as,” Cavanough said.
From those humble surrounds, the Flemington 1000 metres would be the next mission for Cerons who, raced by an all-female trio, chiefly Lauren Cavanough, would be in line for Inglis’s Pink Bonus.
As lucrative as that may be, former champion shearer Cavanough very nearly fleeced the bookies for just as much in that debut. Cerons, finally into some more sensible odds by raceday, but still the field’s distant outsider at $41, bounced out for Jamie Mott to share the lead, and was clear by a length at the 300 metres. But just when the Cavanough camp dared to dream, Bodyguard emerged from the pack to storm to the front, leaving Cerons to hang on for a brave second, beaten two lengths. While the each-way money was still sweet, there was still a good bit of angst to be had.
“I’d always had a bit of an aim to back one at long odds up the Flemington straight,” said Cavanough, who could give his charge practice on Scone’s long back straight.
“And there’s nothing better than taking it off those bloody bookmakers. And you’ve got to sneak ‘em in these days. I do love a punt, and I do love setting one up, and the thing is – the first time you take him to the races, he’s yours. From then on, the public knows what he’s about. We tried hard at Flemington, but we just missed.”
Just as he’d appeared from nowhere, Cerons swiftly vanished. Cavanough had planned to run him in the Inglis Banner (RL, 1000m) at Moonee Valley on Cox Plate day, but “he caught a virus two days after Flemington”, and had to be spelled.
But he’s back for this Saturday’s Millennium. At $2 million, it’s the richest race entered into by Cavanough, who has some 120 horses on his books and counts as his best-ever The Monstar (California Dane), the triple stakes-winner who earned close to $800,000.
Cerons would leapfrog that gelding in the stable’s earners’ list if he can take the $1.15 million first prize this weekend, where he will jump from gate 11 of 16 after emergencies, with Bell aboard.
It’s a tough field headed (of course) by a Waterhouse-Bott juvenile – Fully Lit (Hellbent) at $3.25. His stablemate Trunk (Snitzel), a $1.3 million Easter buy for Yulong who debuted with a second in an 1100-metre two-year-old handicap at Geelong metropolitan meeting last month, is a $6.50 chance. Ciaron Maher’s resuming ATC Inglis Nursery (RL, 1000m) winner Odinson (Night Of Thunder) is at $5.
Bookies have Cavanough’s bush battler a longshot again, but only at $26 this time, and his trainer expects him to more than hold his own against his far more expensive rivals.
“I don’t really know how good he is, because I’ve never got to the bottom of him,” Cavanough said. “And to be honest, I’m nowhere near the bottom of him again.
“He just does everything with consummate ease. I worked him with some older horses the other day; he parked on the back of them, and then went up to them with ease. These were open company horses and they were running time.
“He can run a couple of 11 seconds to the furlong pretty easy, and he’s never had a slap behind the saddle except at Flemington. For that race, I thought, ‘We’ll have him 85 per cent fit and keep 15 per cent and see what happens’. It’s the same going into this Saturday, but still he’s had a couple of pieces of work where he’s come up on the bridle and runs elevens. So we’ll go to raceday and see what he’s got when the pressure comes on.
“He’s still a horse who doesn’t grab you to look at straight away, but when you stand off him and look at him, he’s got a lovely rein, a long barrel – he’s just got a bit of quality about him, but it’s not all in the right places. It’s probably just that he needs to mature. They’re all still growing at this stage.
“But I don’t care if he’s ugly, he’s fast. Everyone wants to line up to give him a pat now, don’t worry.”
Cavanough, who with son Jack continues to run his sideline in breaking horses in, will be a keen participant next week at the Classic sale, as ever.
“It’s always been a really good sale. It’s always been a trainer’s sale,” he said. “You do you homework, you can always find some horses who slip through the cracks.
“There’s so many stallions these days, that a lot of them don’t get supported. So, if you do your homework, it can pay off. Thankfully, breaking in horses can help us get an eye for what stallions might be leaving some decent stock.”