CUP DAY RACING BACK ON WINX GOES FOR FOUR COX PLATES
AS the world’s greatest racehorse heads towards her date with destiny today, the man who could have bought Winx can only watch and wonder at what might have been.
Like a star country footballer who plays one AFL game, he’s not sure if his brush with fame is a medal or a scar.
The right answer, of course, is that it is something to be proud of.
It’s a commonplace in racing that there is a queue of coulda-beens claiming to be the under-bidders on every champion – but in the case of the young Winx, the truth can now publicly be confirmed.
The losing bidder was respected horse breeder Peter Orton, manager of one of Australia’s showpiece studs, The Vinery in the Hunter Valley in NSW.
Orton wasn’t the only one who wanted the leggy daughter of Street Cry and Vegas Showgirl, Lot 329 at the Magic Millions sale in early 2013. But it was actually his final offer (via an agent) that the budding Winx partnership of Peter Tighe, Debbie Kepitis and Richard Treweeke topped with their last-ditch bid.
Any low-ball offer above the selling price of $230,000 would have snared her. But it wasn’t to be. Yearling buyers keep a lot of balls in the air … but not crystal balls.
And so it was that Orton can claim the biggest fishing tale of all – about the one that got away.
Orton has not gone out of his way to advertise it, nor has his loyal agent, Damon Gabbedy, a Melbourne-based agent renowned for picking top-class fillies.
But in the pressure-cooker world of horse breeding and buying, insiders knew that of those who bid for the world’s greatest galloper, Peter Orton ran second with a bid of $220,000.
Orton sees hundreds of young horses every season on the big stud in the Hunter Valley – but still clearly recalls the sensible filly he picked out at the 2013 Magic Millions yearling sales.
He makes the point that her sire, the Irish-bred Street Cry, “wasn’t as hot as a gun” then, just another expensive Kentucky shuttle stallion who had yet to prove himself under Australian conditions.
So the filly wasn’t a showstopper, but he liked her.
“I thought she’d make a nice three-year-old,” he said, breaking a self-imposed silence about something that has been an open secret in breeding circles.
As it turned out, the filly that turned into Winx was much better at four years old than at three and better again at five. But Orton isn’t the only one to reflect on what might have been.
Former Victorian trainer Gerald Ryan badly wanted her but could not interest owners who were intent on buying early-maturing sprinting types with the hope of competing in the world’s richest juvenile race, the Golden Slipper.
Ryan inspected the filly four times but could not persuade his owners to take a punt on a slow developer.
There are other hardluck stories, of course. Such as that of Lot 340, sold half an hour after Winx in 2013.
The imposing black colt was also sired by Winx’s “father” Street Cry. Melbourne trainer Mark Kavanagh paid $550,000 on behalf of a coterie of Melbourne business people wanting a Cups contender.
Winx has finished first 32 times with a winning streak of 28 and counting, whereas the beautiful, big black colt (racing name Spruiking) proved so slow he was donated to the Werribee Veterinary research centre to investigate what was wrong. This is racing. Mostly, the money runs faster than the horses.