“Thanks Champ”: Aaron Kuru with The Cossack, who provided the last of his four-from-four haul onJumps racing fans stayed faithful to their unique code to enjoy a feast of winter racing at Te Rapa last Saturday.
The Waikato Racing Club’s flagship jumps day has always had a big following, from its traditional May time-slot to a month later since last year. That was again obvious when, with the Fairview Motors Waikato Hurdle and Signature Home Waikato Steeplechase on the top half of the programme along with two other jumps races, the fans turned up early.
There were two star acts to savour, one equine, the other human. The latter, Victorian-based expat Aaron Kuru, got his day off to the right start with a no-fuss maiden hurdle win on Mark Walker’s The Mighty Spar. Next he combined with a more familiar carriage, the Paul Nelson/Corrina McDougal-trained Nedwin, on which he had won last year’s Pakuranga Hunt Hurdle before finishing fourth in the Great Northern Hurdle.
Off the back of flat wins in the first two starts of his 2023 campaign, Nedwin was up for the hat-trick in the Waikato Hurdle, but only after the rank outsider, 60-to-one bolter Odysseus, had pushed him to three-quarters of a length in what would have been one the boilover of feature jumps racing.
The Kuru polish was again evident in the maiden steeplechase, when he made the most the opportunity to reconnect with Waverley novice Whiskey Tango. On his previous visit home in late May he had partnered the Proisir gelding to his best result in nine starts for second around the Trentham figure-eight.
This time he had the five-year-old travelling and jumping fluently in front from the outset and they never looked like being beaten. Whiskey Tango is trained at Waverley by Bill Thurlow and is raced by his daughter Emma, for whom he has been a pet project since buying him for $2,000 as a Karaka weanling five years ago.
At that point Proisir was unproven but now, thanks to this second-crop son at one extreme end of the scale, he can take credit for the full gamut of siring achievements, from Group One-winning sprinters to a steeplechase winner.
Whiskey Tango in fact was a significant contributor to Proisir’s landmark weekend which saw him become the first New Zealand stallion to reach $4 million in domestic earnings.
Emma Thurlow was joined on the trip north last weekend by Wanganui horsewoman Kayla Macnab, yet another graduate of the Kevin Myers system, who under her maiden name Veenendaal rode the winners of the 2013 Grand National Hurdle (Mahanadi) and Great Northern Hurdle (Harvest the Gold). She still holds a jumps and highweight licence but as a busy mother now of two daughters along with farming and other daily routines, she limits her race-riding activities.
“Kayla deserves the credit for getting the horse to this stage, she taught him just about all he knows about jumping,” said Emma Thurlow of her highly promising steeplechaser, whose best efforts in eight flat and hurdle starts had been three fourth placings.
The Waikato Steeplechase was the race that all jumps enthusiasts had been waiting for – and reigning Jumper of the Year The Cossack delivered as anticipated at a microscopic $1.20. There was nothing arrogant about the way Kuru went about his job as proficiently as ever. He left that to his mount as he went through his gears on the way to a totally dominant win that took his New Zealand steeplechase tally to an unbeaten three from three.
Nine hurdle wins had already established The Cossack as one of our elite jumpers, and further accolades await. For senior co-trainer Paul Nelson, who shares ownership with fellow Hawke’s Bay identities Peter and Doug Grieve and John Frizell, the days since have provided further reflection on the horse they all acknowledge as one in a lifetime.
“People keep asking me is he my best ever,” says the horseman who has lost count of his feature wins over the past three decades or more. “He has to be, no argument, he’s such a special horse.”
“Aaron was a big part of his career from the start and Shaun (Phelan) took over when Aaron went to Aussie. We all feel sorry for Shaun being injured, but it also means a lot for Aaron to come back home and be part of it again.”
Like The Cossack, Kuru is without doubt one of the very best in his respective role. Last Saturday he became just the third New Zealand jumps jockey to win four races on a single card, but that’s only part of it. His unbeaten sequence actually stretched to six, taking into account the Sale steeplechase win in his final ride before heading to New Zealand and the Warrnambool steeplechase win in his first ride last Sunday.
