Waikato Stud boss excited about big race
Mark Chittick doesn’t have to look very far to find Cox Plate memorabilia.
In a stallion paddock, a 60-second walk from Chittick’s office, champion stallion Savabeel grazes contentedly, the 2004 Cox Plate winner now in his 18th year but still in fighting trim thanks to a fitness regime on the treadmill and busy schedule in the serving barn.
Not far away is 2012 Cox Plate winner Ocean Park, the five-time group one winner having joined the Waikato Stud stallion roster in 2013, giving the Matamata farm the enviable claim of standing two winners of Australasia’s most prestigious weight-for-age race.
“We’re in a privileged position to be able to stand two Cox Plate winners on the farm. And another of our stallions Sacred Falls started in the race as well,” Chittick said.
A further connection with the race was lost when Pins, the sire of 2007 winner El Segundo, died earlier this year. But at Moonee Valley today, Chittick and Waikato Stud have a chance to add another Cox Plate memento as breeders of Kiwi flagbearer Savvy Coup.
The Savabeel mare has already created a remarkable story, chiefly around her connections. Central to the plot has been Christchurch trainer Michael Pitman, battling cancer and only on Thursday released from hospital — where he had undergone surgery this week — to fly to Melbourne to watch the race trackside.
A group one New Zealand Oaks winner and age-group champion at three, Savvy Coup has established herself as one of New Zealand’s leading weight-for-age performers as a spring four-year-old leading to her triumph in this month’s group one Livamol Classic (2040m) at Hastings.
After that win, a tearful Pitman said it was his wish to get to Moonee Valley for the Cox Plate but with the impending surgery, he couldn’t guarantee it.
After surgeons gave him the green light to fly, Pitman said: “I’m not sure whether it’s the right thing to be doing but that’s what I’m doing. I’ve just got to take it easy and pace myself a bit, but I’ll be right. It’s an opportunity not to be missed, it’s just massive.”
And along for the ride is 54-yearold jockey Chris Johnson, a veteran of three Melbourne Cups but never before ridden in a Cox Plate. To his immediate outside as he loads into the barrier gates will be Hugh Bowman, the man crowned World’s Best Jockey in 2017 and tasked with riding champion mare Winx in her quest for an unprecedented fourth straight Cox Plate win. Two spots further down on Rostropovich is the 2016 World’s Best Jockey and the man generally accepted as the best of his profession, Ryan Moore.
Johnson was typically understated about opportunity to ride in a Cox Plate this week but it was clear the chance to take Savvy Coup for a blat around Moonee Valley against Winx in an A$5 million race had him excited.
That excitement is shared at Waikato Stud, where Savvy Coup was born.
“The Cox Plate is my favourite race,” Chittick said.
“I’d love to win it one day with a horse I own. That won’t be happening this year but we do have a chance of breeding the winner — though if you look at the betting markets it’s only a slim one with Winx in there.”
Savvy Coup’s sire Savabeel has left his mark far more as a stallion than he did as a racehorse, even accounting for his $13 Cox Plate upset for trainer Graeme Rogerson.
“I remember Rogey telling everyone he’d win with Savabeel in the week leading up to the race — and he did,” Chittick said.
“When Ocean Park won, he gave the second and third horses 8 kilos each and that was a great training feat from Gary Hennessy and [wife] Jenny.”
Savvy Coup’s mum Eudora never raced because she only had one eye and Chittick recalled there was nothing too memorable about her second foal. “She was nondescript as a yearling and we sold her for $65,000 to Jim Bruford,” he said. “I really take my hat off to Jim. He’s a shrewd horse buyer. He doesn’t buy too many but he generally has good success with what he buys.
“I’m always a great believer that young untried mares can become great broodmares. They haven’t been burned out on the racetrack and everything goes into their foals. And they get a head start because they often start breeding as three-yearolds.
“While there wasn’t much about Savvy Coup then, there certainly is now — and that’s the beauty about what we do — the uncertainty of it all. On Saturday, she’ll run in a Cox Plate.
“She’s shown she’s extra tough. She ran in all the top races as a threeyear-old and has come back even better at four.
“We’re very excited to have bred a Cox Plate runner and there’s a good feeling around it with [owners] Jim Bruford and his family and Ray Coupland and his family and everything that Michael Pitman and his family have been through.”
Savvy Coup is a $31 outsider in the TAB’s Cox Plate market, with Winx dominating betting at $1.22, but Chittick is poised in case of an upset.
“We’d have a huge party if she won on Saturday night.”