Derby Day: One of the greatest afternoons Australia has to offer
The volume of interest and attendees as it opens the superb four days of Cup week entitles it to top billing but as days go – and at the risk of being exiled from my home state – I’ve always been fond of Epsom and Turnbull DAY and The Everest now complementing the Caulfield Guineas program makes it one heck of a DAY.
Derby day certainly has the week’s best Flemington offerings and, of course, has history on its side. There’s any number of contenders for the most memorable of Derby days in my time. Tulloch, unquestionably among Australia’s racing legends, won the Derby in the year of my birth.
I cannot claim any recollection of that but I was a racing nerd before I’d reached the age of reason (perhaps therein lies my problem) and thus I can recall several of the Classic winners before my teens – notably Tobin Bronze, Always There and especially Daryl’s Joy – in 1969 – for at least two reasons which I’ll come to.
I’ve probably missed something now that I’m way past reason and nearer dementia but these would be my most memorable Derby days:
It’s hard to beat David Hayes’ feat of training six winners in 1990 on Derby day. It was just after his 28th birthday and just a few months into his training career as the man at the helm of the Lindsay Park operation.
His winners were Raise A Rhythm at 5-2 on, Wrap Around 5-I, Beachside 14-1, Planet Ruler 14-1, Better Loosen Up 5-4 and Mount Olympus 10-1. Michael Clarke rode four and Peter Hutchinson two.
The ever likeable Hutchy, if memory serves me well, picked up the Gadsden ride on Planet Ruler as the then star apprentice Damien Oliver was double booked and because Lindsay Park regular Gary Clarke had his nose broken when Planet Ruler reared at the start at his previous run in the Toorak Handicap.
Better Loosen Up graduated from his Mackinnon Stakes win this day to take the Japan Cup at his next start. They were two of a sequence of seven straight wins from September 1990 to March 1991 – along with the Feehan, Turnbull, Cox Plate, Blamey Stakes and Australian Cup.
Let’s Elope, remarkably, was able to also win seven races straight the following year including the Mackinnon on Derby day. She also won the Turnbull, Caulfield Cup, Melbourne Cup, Orr, St George and Australian Cup.
But as sequences of seven go, including a Derby day win, no horse has topped Rising Fast who won the Turnbull, Caulfield Stakes, Caulfield Cup, Cox Plate, Mackinnon, Melbourne Cup and Fisher Plate in 1954.
Vain’s Craven A Stakes win by 12 lengths, in 1969, would certainly introduce any video footage of memorable Derby days. He was beaten just twice in 14 starts and once, at three, by the aforementioned Daryl’s Joy who won the Derby.
Vain was freakishly good. It’s by no means certain that Black Caviar would have had his measure.
Jockey Pat Hyland, reflecting on the great sprinter in The age, said: “he was only a three-year-old and actually it was interesting as Jim Moloney and I walked towards Vain to mount up, Jim said to me: ‘Now listen, all the press want you to break the track record. We’ve got to produce this bloke twice more this week so don’t worry about records.’
”He won by 12 lengths and the following Thursday we ran him in the 1400 metres weight-for-age race and I couldn’t hold him slow enough to win by four lengths.”
The following Thursday was, of course, five days later and Vain then on the Saturday won the George Adams and surpassed Tulloch to become the greatest stake-winning three-year-old in Australian racing.
The 1200 metres Derby day sprint has had any number of names. The Craven A when Vain won it; the Gadsden for Planet Ruler and the Gadsden Rheem when Final Card ran the then course record time of 1.7.8 in 1991 – the same day Star Of The Realm beat Naturalism in the Derby and Let’s Elope won the Mackinnon. That was one fine day.
So too was 1995 when the pocket rocket Brawny Spirit won the Sprint – that year called the Salinger. Brawny Spirit had won on debut at Flemington by 6.5 lengths with Harry White aboard for trainer Mick Winks. Nothing extraordinary about that – expect that he was 100/1 and paid even more on the tote.
That was some day in 1995. Nothin’ Leica Dane, who went on to run second in the Cup, upset the champion three-year-old Octagonal in the Derby. Saintly won the Carbine Club Stakes; Saleous won the Wakeful; Danewin the Mackinnon and everybody’s favourite Aunty Mary won the fore-runner to the Empire Rose Stakes.
Taj Rossi won the Derby in 1973 and Red Anchor in 1984 which rates a mention as both are generally undersold when Australia’s greatest racehorses are discussed.
The 1976 Victoria Derby was another epic with Unaware beating Family Of Man and Salamander and not one of those three high class performers started favourite. Which horse did? Well that’s one a much favoured trivia question along with – which jockey won the Pure Pak Stakes three years running from 1979?
Guess I’ll have to tweet the answers later this morning. Good luck on Derby day.