Perfect scripts don’t come much better than that surrounding last Saturday’s Listed Steelform RoPerfect scripts don’t come much better than that surrounding last Saturday’s Listed Steelform Roofing Wanganui Cup win by Kelly Coe.
On the 175th anniversary of the Wanganui Jockey Club’s founding on the very same River City location back in 1848, the club’s flagship race was won by a horse owned and bred by a family with a legacy to compare.
The first Wanganui Cup was staged in 1875, a year after Irish immigrant Jeremiah O’Leary arrived in the district. On Saturday – 148 years later – O’Leary’s great-grandson Humphrey stamped his name on the historic trophy for the second time when Kelly Coe claimed victory.
Five years earlier O’Leary and his wife Fiona celebrated their first Wanganui Cup win with Ladies First, who added the following year’s Auckland Cup to continue another tradition almost as long as the historic race.
The Wanganui Cup, initially contested over 18 furlongs (3600m), was less than a decade old when its 1883 and 1884 winners King Quail and The Poet also boasted victory in the Ellerslie staying feature. Numerous subsequent Wanganui Cup winners were to establish their place in racing’s wider history – to name some, Hall of Fame champion Redcraze won the race in 1955, six years later Picaroon added it to his string of Cup wins, in 1993 Ligeiro became another Wanganui-Auckland Cup winner, and a year after Ladies First emulated that feat, Waverley stayer Glory Days did likewise.
The O’Leary name has been a constant in Wanganui racing history since the family patriarch’s arrival as a 21-year-old in 1874. Jeremiah O’Leary grew up in Bantry Bay, a legendary region in Ireland’s deep south-west, and he joined his nation’s diaspora when Ireland was still under British rule.
“My great-grandfather went farming as well as being on the local council, and for about 20 years he was the course curator at the Jockey Club,” Humphrey O’Leary told RaceForm earlier this week. “I’m told it was his idea to put in a big pond on the course to filter the sand out of the water that was then used to irrigate the track and surrounds, which I suppose back then was quite revolutionary.”
The name O’Leary has played an increasingly significant role in racing both locally and further afield. In the past decade one utterly durable horse took Humphrey and his brothers Dan, Michael and Shaun on an incredible journey.
Named for their Aunt Julie’s call when her glass was close to empty, Who Shot Thebarman became an icon of Australasian racing, beginning with his 2014 Auckland Cup win through to the Sydney Cup four years later. Along the way he lined up in the Melbourne Cup four times, won 11 of his 57 starts and earned close to $5 million.
After being retired as a fully sound 10-year-old, Who Shot Thebarman spent the next two years at Melbourne’s Living Legends home for racetrack stars, and is now enjoying life on the farm of Michael O’Leary, competing with his teenage daughter on the local show circuit.
Now 15 years old, he took part in last weekend’s Wanganui anniversary celebrations as part of the mounted parade on Saturday. That was only the start of Humphrey and Fiona O’Leary’s occasion to remember, which in the race immediately before the Wanganui Cup included their sponsorship of the O’Learys Fillies Stakes.
“We’ve sponsored the race for eight or nine years now and it couldn’t have worked out better that this year was the first time it was on Wanganui Cup day,” Fiona O’Leary said. “We were still in the sponsors’ room when our race came around, and to be honest the field was so strong we would have been happy to finish in the top five.”
Having been run down late after making the pace over 2000m on New Zealand Cup day at Riccarton, this time local jockey Lisa Allpress was back in the saddle and rode a perfect race on Kelly Coe, slotting in behind a solid tempo and bringing her down the outside.
First day winner Semper Magico tried hard to repeat his performance, but Kelly Coe was relentless as she drew level and forged clear to score by a length and a quarter. In commentator Tony Lee’s words as Kelly Coe was pulling up, “some things are meant to happen”.
“It couldn’t have worked out better,” Humphrey O’Leary said earlier this week as he reflected on a highlight in his racing life. “Celebrating is one of the best things in racing and we did that pretty well on Saturday night.
“We’ve tried various ways over the years, but the best is going to a favourite pub, pulling up as many leaners as you need and enjoying a drink and something to eat. It’s way better than sitting around a table and not being able to circulate, this way everyone gets involved.”
Still active as dairy farmers on their Whangaehu farm, that meant the O’Learys had to rise before dawn on Sunday morning to milk their 150-cow herd. That was a vastly contrasting experience from the previous Sunday morning when there was nothing like a Wanganui Cup win to make light of the burden.
“The previous Saturday night we got the news that the Proisir colt Ladies First had just foaled had died, so it was a pretty sombre milking. Back in the shed a week later we couldn’t help but chuckle at the contrast in luck this racing and breeding can land on you.”
Kelly Coe represented a change in methodology for the O’Learys, who had previously bought their future racehorses. For instance, Who Shot Thebarman had been purchased out of the paddock as a weanling from breeders White Ribe Lodge, while Ladies First was secured as an autumn yearling at a Karaka mixed sale. By remarkable coincidence, both cost a bargain $8,000.
The O’Learys were back at Karaka for the 2017 Mixed Bloodstock Sale when Fiona suggested a change in tack by buying a broodmare. Humphrey wasn’t exactly enthused at the idea of breeding becoming part of the farm model, but when his wife opened the catalogue page to Floridita, whose Ocean Park filly they had bought for $10,000 from the Select session at the National Yearling Sale three months earlier, he went along with Fiona’s idea.
“I told her she could go to $5,000, figuring she was a reasonably young well-bred mare in foal to Proisir, so there was no way she would go that cheaply.”
How wrong he was, as a beaming Fiona arrived back in the sales pavilion café with a docket showing the price tag of $3,500!
“When we got her home we thought we’d better scan her just to make sure she was in foal, and sure enough she was. The chestnut filly she produced a few months later is now Kelly Coe.”
Floridita didn’t produce another foal, but the numbers on the O’Leary farm have continued to grow through the likes of four-time winner Penelope Cruise, the older sister to Kelly Coe purchased as a yearling, and Ladies First.
“Penelope has just had her first foal, a nice colt by Zed, and Ladies First has a two-year-old and a yearling by Zed as well. It was a bugger losing that Proisir colt, but we’ll give her the year off with it now being December.”
More immediate plans centre on Kelly Coe, whose next target will be the Gr. 3 Manawatu Cup on December 23. Last Saturday’s big win was the second at black-type level for young Awapuni trainer Ashley Meadows, who true to theme has a strong connection to the Wanganui district. He is a nephew of Angela Ilston, the partner of the region’s best-known trainer, Kevin Myers.
“Ashley is a very good horseman and has done a bit of work for us over the years,” says Humphrey. “He broke in Kelly Coe and did his usual good job, so we thought he deserved the opportunity to train her.
“I’ve had a good chat with him since the weekend and the Manawatu Cup looks a logical next start, so that’s where she’ll head all going to plan.
“She isn’t in the Wellington Cup – we’ve got Whangaehu back with Bill Thurlow after racing in Sydney and entered for Trentham – but if things work out, we might look at the Auckland Cup with Kelly.
“I quite like the sound of a third Auckland Cup – it has a nice ring to it.”
