‘I am running a lot of placings, but I can’t seem to get them the way I want to’
There’s been plenty going on for the Robinson family, but for Terry unfortunately just not on the racetrack.
NSW South Coast-based trainer Terry Robinson, whose eldest daughter Jen is the celebrated human rights lawyer who led WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s successful bid for freedom, admits that his stable has been performing “only averagely”.
“I’m struggling. I am running a lot of placings, but I can’t seem to get them the way I want to. I’d like to be winning a few more races than we have,” Terry said.
“It’s a year where I bought a few horses and they’re just coming back as three-year-olds. I am not one to push horses and there’s a bit of hope there in the stable, so I am looking forward to seeing what they can do.”
The Kosciuszko-winning trainer has cause to be optimistic about the future courtesy of some of those rising four-year-olds, including the lightly raced Impending (Lonhro) gelding The Main Event who Robinson bought out of Western Australia.
The trainer takes on the advice of his fourth child, Magic Millions bloodstock manager Dane, on many of his equine purchases, but he did much of his own groundwork when it came to the buying of The Main Event at the 2022 Magic Millions Perth sale.
“I was the under bidder to start with but they passed him in. I ended up having a trip to Perth to see my daughter Jen who was over there during Covid and I was in lockdown,” Terry recalled.
“They decided they wanted to sell him and I was going over two days later, so I bought him as soon as I saw him.
“He’s by Impending. I don’t mind him. I do think he goes all right.”
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Agent Sheamus Mills revealed Australasian Oaks (Gr 1, 2000m) winner Vibrant Sun (The Autumn Sun) and fellow rising four-year-old Charm Stone (I Am Invincible) were he and his partners’ big spring hopes.
But the agent and owner, who has based his business around buying and racing high-class fillies, is less certain about where the ceiling is for his lightly raced Tessa’s Choice (Extreme Choice) and Down Low (Deep Field).
Rising three-year-old Tessa’s Choice ran fourth in the Ottawa Stakes (Gr 3, 1000m) at Flemington on November 9 (later placed third upon the disqualification of first-past-the-post Karavas).
The Mick Price and Michael Kent Jnr-trained Tessa’s Choice has been sidelined for the rest of her two-year-old season due to injury.
“She hurt a tendon up high, near a hock, which is a fairly unusual injury,” Mills told us.
“Most tendon injuries are in front, so it was a bit unusual. She didn’t ‘do it’ as such, it was more the branch and she has done a full rehabilitation.”
The formlines that have emerged from the Ottawa Stakes – four of the eight runners have won at least one race since – has Mills contemplating stakes races in the new season.
“That form has almost been the form of the two-year-olds, obviously other than the Slipper, etc,” he said.
“Eneeza came through that race, Arabian Summer came through the race, Hayasugi finished just behind Tessa’s Choice, so the form out of the Ottawa has been outstanding.
“It gives you a little bit of heart that Tessa’s Choice might be in the mix for some of those nice three-year-old races. We’ll just find our way with her.
“I don’t know if she’s a Thousand Guineas filly or whether she’s going to want something shorter. Physically, she looks like she’ll get a mile, but until we try her through some of those 1200-metre fillies races, we won’t know.”
Rising four-year-old Down Low was placed in the Without Fear (Listed, 1050m) and the David Coles (Gr 3, 1200m) during the Adelaide carnival in May 2023, but she has raced just twice this season, winning her maiden at Sale in January.
Down Low then ran fifth at Flemington on March 2 but pulled up with an issue, necessitating the removal of bone chips.
“She came back and resumed around the same time as Vibrant Sun and we were very happy with her effort,” the agent said.
“Unfortunately, she needed a bone chip to be removed, but it all seems to have gone well.
“Once again, we’ll just pick and choose our way with her and see where she winds up. I think with each preparation you’ve got to readjust your sights and see where they fit in.
“They’re young horses and it’s like under 10s and 12s footy. Who’s a star [early] and then who’s overrun. The kid who perhaps wasn’t a star can show improvement.
“We’ve got some established ones there with Vibrant Sun and Charm Stone, but with the others we’ll just find our way to see where they fit in.”
Stablemate Gumdrops (Written Tycoon), another rising four-year-old who won the Crockett Stakes (Listed, 1200m) and the Typhoon Tracy (Gr 3, 1200m) this season, will also chase further black type success in 2024-25.
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It’s been three months since racing in Macau, once a thriving thoroughbred hub in Asia, ended for good.
But there’s still horses at the track with owners unable to relocate them to Australia despite the Macau Jockey Club’s promises of help in the lead up to racing ceasing at Taipa.
Prominent racing identity Jenny Chapman, a highly respected mounting yard analyst in Hong Kong who is married to professional punter and horse trader David Price, this week told how she and her co-owners have been unable to get four-year-old Hennu Stall (Alpine Eagle) back to Australia to continue his racing career.
He had won one race and placed a further five times in nine starts in Macau for expatriate Australian trainer Geoff Allendorf.
“He’s healthy and happy, we just need to get him out,” Chapman, who is one of 15 members of the Fabulous Fillies Syndicate which owns Hennu Stall, told the South China Morning Post.
“He’s only four. We’re just sitting here waiting for something to happen and I’m worried that they’re going to drag it out.
“We’ve only got a year to get them out of Macau and we’re paying HK$8,000 a month to make sure he’s fed, watered and looked after. If we get to that point, what do we do?”
The report suggested that the Jockey Club had promised a flight to New Zealand (direct flights to Australia aren’t allowed due to quarantine restrictions) would be in June or July but it is now looking more likely to August or September, if a flight does eventuate.
Hennu Stall was on the final shipment of horses to arrive in Macau in June 2023. No horses were imported after that.
“It’s almost getting to the point where I might have to race him in Malaysia. I don’t want to if I can help it, but I think that’s our best alternative if we can’t get him back to Australia,” she said.
The actions or lack thereof from the Macau Jockey Club should ring alarm bells for the Singapore Turf Club officials to live up to their promises when racing ends at Kranji in early October.