Ecstatic Vandyke worships Goddess after her storming Oaks triumph
BETTER than Yankee Rose, better than Alligator Blood.
And a hell of a lot better than the dark days when he was in the depths of a drug addiction spiral and sleeping in his car in Sydney.
Gypsy Goddess’s remarkable win in the Group 1 Queensland Oaks was the highlight of David Vandyke’s training career.
Vandyke, now a clean-living trainer who moved to the Sunshine State in 2016 chasing a new life away from the hustle and bustle of Sydney, was reduced to tears when Gypsy Goddess gave her rivals a galloping lesson in the Oaks on Saturday.
Vandyke had won Group 1 races before, twice with Yankee Rose and once with headline horse Alligator Blood, but said this was the finest moment of his training career.
And it wasn’t a bad moment for Willie Pike either, the wizard of west becoming the baron of Brisbane when he took off early at Eagle Farm.
Pike risked ending up with egg on his face but he knew he had a star filly underneath him.
Pike looked like a genius – but this was Vandyke’s special moment.
“The love and care that has gone into Gypsy Goddess in the last seven and a half months since she won her maiden, to keep her up, this has been an amazing period of time,” said Vandyke, his voice cracking with emotion.
“To finish that with a Group 1 is my career highlight.
“She has had a hard journey, she has raced up here, she went down to Sydney on the heavy tracks.
“I said to the boys a couple of weeks ago that if it was any other horse we would probably turn her out.
“But we just gave her every chance to get to the Oaks.
“Willie probably wished he has waited another furlong. She just rounded them up and went to the front. I thought he might have gone too soon. He just had a lapful of horse, doesn’t she love Eagle Farm!”
Gypsy Goddess jumped in the Oaks as the $4.40 favourite. “I don’t know if it was much of a ride, she was just too good for them,” Pike said.
While Gypsy Goddess was dominant, $5 second favourite Barb Raider tried her heart out and lost no admirers in finishing a one-length second.