SO CLOSE TO GLORY

Q

You were part of a controversial piece of racing history when your horse Don’t Play appeared to have won the 1989 Group 1 Stradbroke Handicap, only for Bart Cumming’s Robian Steel to be given the win. What happened?

A

Brian York rode Don’t Play that day and he still swears to this day we won it. I never got to see the photo from the finish. They failed to produce it and I don’t know what happened to it. Someone must have pinched it. I asked to see it but they couldn’t find it. I was devastated when the number went up and it wasn’t mine. Everyone on the course, even the racecaller declared me the winner. Journalist Bart Sinclair ran up to me and said, ‘well done’. I didn’t have the presence of mind to see the photo before they declared the correct weight and it was after they declared that I thought about it and when I asked they couldn’t find it. They used to place the photo up in a glass frame downstairs where the photo tower was. Anybody from the public could go look at it and it just disappeared.

Q

Did you ever ask Bart Cummings if he saw the official photo?

A

No. I don’t know if Bart thought he got second but he never spoke about it. He was the type of bloke who just thought if it wins then it wins. I just congratulated him for beating me twice in a week. He beat me in the race and he took Stylish Century off me earlier in the week. He said, “well son, that’s racing”. That’s all he said. I had Stylish Century as a two-year-old and he won a Golden Nugget at the Gold Coast and ran a track record. He went on to win the Victorian Derby (at Flemington in 1989, pictured) with Bart and he lost him too. He had plenty of trainers.