A Gold Trip to success
Owner left Ireland 35 years ago now eyeing Melbourne Cup
NOEL Greenhalgh arrived in Australia 35 years ago – the journey prompted by a session in a Dublin pub – with an ambition to win a professional soccer trophy.
Now, the colourful former Irishman and fruit market baron could win a Melbourne Cup.
Greenhalgh, who already has six Group 1s as an owner to his name, has a share in Gold Trip, who will race in the Cup after a totally luckless ninth place in the Cox Plate.
Cheering on a horse of his own in a Melbourne Cup would have been a pipedream when Greenhalgh first arrived in Brisbane in 1987.
He had never heard of the city of Brisbane – which was still a year off bursting to prominence on the world stage when hosting Expo 88 – before that night in his local pub in Ireland’s capital. Over more than a few beers the talented soccer player was convinced to head to Queensland to play for Brisbane City.
“In my local pub – which was any one of three on any given night – I bumped into a bloke who I played schoolboy football with who had been playing soccer in Brisbane,” Greenhalgh recalled.
“Of course, in 1987 there weren’t many people in Dublin who were too familiar with where Brisbane was.
“I knew Sydney and Melbourne and my mate said Brisbane was up the road from Sydney, I thought, ‘that will do’.
“I was soon flying out on a plane to play for Brisbane City, Tony Bellino of Fitzgerald Inquiry fame was the chairman and he turned out to be a good and kind man for me.
“In no time I was having a great time and I decided I wasn’t going back, I captained City for quite a few seasons and we won a premiership.”
Greenhalgh’s first foray into working at the Brisbane Fruit Markets was when he met his future wife, Maria, after a soccer game.
Maria’s father was a key operator at the markets and Greenhalgh started from the bottom up, initially working as a labourer, and he jokes: “I didn’t know and apple from an orange.
“I really didn’t like it initially, I hated it,” Greenhalgh said. “But I listened and learned the whole caper and I went from there and the business has grown substantially.”
Greenhalgh’s racing interests were sparked after meeting Peter
Tighe, who was a market competitor but quickly grew to become a great mate.
Greenhalgh started going into partnership with Tighe in the ownership of many horses but famously missed out on Winx.
On the day Winx went through the sales ring, Greenhalgh was busy at work and decided not to take a share in the filly sight unseen.
He hasn’t dwelt on the near miss – despite Winx becoming a legend of the turf after her extraordinary 33race winning streak, which included four successive Cox Plates.
“I started getting into more horses when there was an introduction to Chris Waller through Peter Tighe,” Greenhalgh said.
“I changed my horse strategy from buying them outright and hoping for a good one, to diversifying that outright share into four shares in four horses.
“You are virtually reducing the risk of buying a slow one.
“As for Winx, in all likelihood if I was there I would have bought a share in the horse.
“The following day I purchased Amicus and she was our first Group 1 winner.”
Of Greenhalgh’s six Group 1s, he and wife Maria haven’t been on track for five of them.
So it might not be the best omen they will be on track at Flemington on Melbourne Cup day.
Greenhalgh, whose previous best Melbourne Cup finish was when import Finche finished fourth in 2018, thinks Gold Trip is in with a great show.
Racing in the Australian Bloodstock colours, Gold Trip will become the first horse to run in all three Melbourne spring carnival majors for five years.
Gold Trip finished a strong second in the Caulfield Cup after his ninth in the Cox Plate where he never really got a crack at them.
The five-year-old stallion, who finished fourth in the 2020 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe, will be one to watch on Tuesday at Flemington.
“The horse basically had a barrier trial in the Cox Plate, we got no luck,” Greenhalgh said.
“It doesn’t look like the strongest Melbourne Cup field.
“But you never know, there are good horses in there and you have to respect the opposition.”