Cliff Goss is joined by co-owner Darryl Heaphy and jockey Jasmine Fawcett Just four of the 95 starters on last Saturday’s Tauranga Classic card were trained on the eastern side of the Kaimai Ranges, but up against the might of the Waikato and stables from further afield, they ensured that the two major prizes stayed in the Bay of Plenty.
Leading the charge for the locals was that remarkable nonagenarian Cliff Goss, who saddled up Casino Princess to win the Listed Team Wealleans Tauranga Classic, while Antony Fuller claimed the Seeka Kiwifruit Cup with the star of his small team, Khan Hunter. A further segue is that both horses were purchased by their current owners off the Gavelhouse online platform.
Goss, whose hands-on horsemanship continues to defy his 92 years, has unwittingly built a following that has entitled him to become known as racing’s oldest pin-up boy. After beginning three-quarters of a century ago as an apprentice jockey, in his early twenties he swapped licences to owner-trainer before establishing himself as a respected public trainer, which included a stint in Macau.
Having retired with his wife Rae from Palmerston North to the sunnier climes of Tauranga, when he was widowed several years ago Goss made the decision to revive his training career. He has since lived by the mantra “If you sit at home doing nothing you die”, with results that mirror his remarkable longevity.
Since renewing his licence in 2018, he has lined up horses he races in partnership with long-time friend Darryl Heaphy 24 times for no less than 12 wins. Their standout was the appropriately named Swiss Ace gelding Gold Watch, who from the spring of 2020 to late 2021 put together a seven-win sequence.
The big chestnut’s career was tragically cut short when he lined up as the odds-on favourite in the Gr. 2 Rich Hill Mile at Ellerslie on New Year’s Day, 2022, only to suffer a fatal breakdown. That still wasn’t enough to dent Goss’s stoic resilience, turning his attention to a three-year-old filly purchased as a yearling for $5,000 from Gavelhouse.
At that stage Casino Princess had started just once for a midfield placing, but when she returned to the races on her home track in late March, the purple and white colours were back on top with a seven and a half-length win. By the time the leggy bay had completed a hat-trick in late autumn, it was obvious that Goss had yet another well above average talent on his hands.
Casino Princess’s progression through the grades hasn’t been without its trials, however, most significantly when she suffered a pulmonary haemorrhage in the second start of her spring campaign, forcing a three-month stand-down.
She resumed with a third placing last February, followed by consecutive second placings and then career win number four at Rotorua in May, which sealed a long-held ambition to target the Tauranga Classic.
“Stakes races are what you want to be winning, especially with a filly, so that’s where she’ll be heading,” Goss said at the time. Thus, in his own quiet and calculated way, he set about preparing Casino Princess for her open grade debut, sticking to his weekly routine of a Wednesday gallop complemented by pacework on surrounding days.
The weight-for-age conditions of the fillies and mares’ feature meant that despite her rating of 79, Casino Princes carried the same 57 kilos as the likes of 97-rated Malt Time. Gate 10 in the 14-horse field added to the challenge, but that mattered little once jockey Jasmine Fawcett sent her forward to sit on the quarters of pacemaker Wessex, shot her to the lead at the top of the straight and never looked like being collared.
At the line the winning margin was two and a half lengths over Malt Time, finishing bravely from well back, while Wessex held onto third place. For Fawcett, it was another milestone in her career-high season, taking her current season tally to 63 and within six wins of 300.
Casino Princess keeps company with a two-year-old El Roca gelding that Goss describes as a “nice horse that just needs a bit more time, but I do like what he’s shown me so far”.
The Tauranga Classic was the second leg of a notable local double after Khan Hunter had led throughout to win the Kiwifruit Cup by nearly four lengths for the combination of trainer Antony Fuller and in-form apprentice Maria Sanson.
Fuller races Khan Hunter with near neighbours Gene and Barb Jacobsen, the trio having bought him for $3,900 off the Gavelhouse platform in October 2022 when he was the winner of one race and less than $20,000 in stakes for original trainers Shaune Ritchie and Colm Murray.
“I left it to Gene to do the bidding – I’m not much good when it comes to computers – but we had done our homework and Shaune and Colm were quite up-front that he was one of those horses that would be better off in a small stable,” Fuller told RaceForm in the Tauranga winners’ room on Saturday.
“He wasn’t the best behaved when we got him, but I’ve had worse and he gradually came right. We do most of our work on the hills around home and that’s really suited him.”
So much so, since winning his first race in new ownership in March 2023 – over the same 2100m as Saturday’s race with Sanson in the saddle – Khan Hunter has added another four, boosting his stake-earnings by just a few hundred dollars short of $200,000.
There was one important member of the entourage absent on Saturday, Fuller’s wife Sarah, who is on holiday visiting family in the north-east of the United Kingdom while she recovers from a broken femur.
“It happened at home, a bit of a fluke accident and not even when she was riding,” explained her fellow English-born husband. “She’s been having trouble behaving herself since and giving it a chance to heal, so I suggested she’d be better off heading home, where her mother still lives up in County Durham.
“Sarah’s enjoying her time up there and even though she’s not here to join in the celebrations, I’m sure she would have tuned into the race. We’ve been trying for some time to win the Kiwifruit Cup, so it’s good to finally nail it.”
One of the Fuller stable’s previous Kiwifruit Cup candidates was the best they’ve had, Roger That, who finished fourth in the 2018 and 2019 editions before his upset win in the 2020 Auckland Cup. Their hardy sprinter-miler John Gray also tried twice but came up short at the distance.
Longevity has been a hallmark of racehorses prepared by the Fullers on their property between Te Puna and Katikati overlooking the Tauranga Harbour. Rising seven-year-old Khan Hunter is still relatively young when compared to John Gray, the winner of 14 of his 113 starts from four to 11 years, and rising 12-year-old Roger That, who was retired after his unplaced effort in last month’s Rotorua Cup.
Having been purchased for $4,000 as a yearling, the Shinko King gelding turned that into $574,000 during his 70-start, eight-win career.
“We decided before the Rotorua Cup that Roger had to finish in the first three if he was going to continue racing, but it wasn’t to be,” Fuller said. “He was still running good races but he just lacked that bit of dash at the end.
“I suppose you could say the spirit was willing but when you get to 11 like he has, there’s something missing. He’s earned his retirement, and now it looks like we’ve got another decent one to take his place.”
