Tash and the Prince taking on the world
PRINCE of Arran woke up to a Geelong Cup full of carrots yesterday.
One of his favourite foods was his reward for winning Wednesday’s Group 3 feature and earning a spot in this year’s Melbourne Cup.
According to trainer Charlie Fellowes’ travelling forewoman Tash Eaton, the spritely seven-year-old knew that he’d done well.
He always does.
Rewind 24 hours and both Eaton and Fellowes were nervous messes, albeit at opposite ends of the world.
Fellowes watched the Cup from bed in England after rising early to make sure all of his other horses were being worked, while Eaton walked Prince of Arran around Geelong’s parade ring. She whispered in his ear before letting him go out onto the track.
“I always talk in his ear to tell him that everything is going to be OK and to make sure he comes back sound. That’s the main thing,” Eaton said.
Prince of Arran and Eaton have formed a special bond. That’s what happens when you spend so much time on the road together.
The pair are also inseparable back at Fellowes’ Newmarket stables with Eaton estimating that she spends “99 per cent” of her time with Prince of Arran.
“I am always with him,” Eaton said. “The only time I’m not with him is in the evening and when I’m overnight racing, because I’m the travelling head girl for Charlie. So I do all the driving to the races and that sort of travelling. He’s the yard legend. Everyone loves him back home, the team absolutely adore him.”
The level of trust Fellowes has in Eaton speaks volumes to the talent she has with horses.
A former jockey, Eaton rides all of Prince of Arran’s work in Australia and reports back to Fellowes.
Regular Australian rider Michael Walker only ever throws his leg over the horse on race day.
“I’ve said in the past to Charles, if we’re at Meydan (in Dubai) or somewhere like that, ‘Do you want one of the jocks to jump on to have a feel?’ and he says, ‘No, Tash, your opinion is as good as theirs, you know him’,” she said. “It makes you feel nice, doesn’t it? Makes you feel good.”
Eaton decided to hang up the saddle after a “bad accident”, ending up with Fellowes on a “gut feeling”.
“I served my apprenticeship with Alan Bailey. I had 29 winners, but it was quite hard back then, hard for females, but it’s getting better,” Eaton said. “I enjoyed it. But I just had a bad accident at Lingfield (racecourse) and I thought ‘I don’t want to do it any more, riding bad horses and stuff like that’.
“But I didn’t want to not be at the races and I wanted to travel the world and I just had a gut feeling that Charlie was going to go places. I was right.”
Eaton didn’t leave Werribee until 7.30pm on Wednesday night, Geelong Cup in her hand. Her night ended up pretty tame. You can’t go too hard when you’ve got a Melbourne Cup contender to tend to.
“I got back to the hotel and had a coffee and I was like, ‘What are you doing, why are you having a coffee?’” Eaton laughed.
“So I messaged the lads from quarantine and was like, ‘Guys, what are you doing?’ And they said, ‘Tash, it’s quiz night at the Park, get yourself down here and we can celebrate.’ So I had a couple of beers, which was nice.”
Prince of Arran’s Geelong Cup win was his second big victory in Australia, again proving his unbelievable consistency at the top level.
He won last year’s Lexus Stakes to make the Melbourne Cup field and then went on to finish third in that race.
Prince of Arran also has a second (2019) and a third (2018) in the Herbert Power Stakes.
“He just thrives being out here, he loves it,” Eaton said.
“I’m not sure if it’s because it's a proper one-on-one, you know, me and him conquering Australia. (It’s like we’re) taking on the world together.”