Platinum Racing

Over the holiday period I have been watrching a fair bit of racing - and getting some repressed memory syndrome therapy with it - looking at names of horses and racing colours that have reached the dizzy heights in racing in the past.

The Conqueror, who has been going gangbusters for Canberra trainer Nick Olive, wears the pale green, black diagonal strips and pale green cap - colours formerly owned by the late Jock Graham. These famous colours were carried to victory in many Gr 1 races by the mighty Imagele, which included a triple crown - Canterbury and Rosehill Guineas' and AJC Derby when he won that memorable tussle over Leica Lover and Grand Cidium.

They were also carried to victory in a Doomben 10,000 by outstanding mare Cele's Image and his bonny sprinting mare, Tina's Joy won a Carrington in the colours, among other wins.

At Scone and Nowra recently the famous white, yellow sleeves, black cap of the late Fred Moses also resurfaced. These colours were worn by champion gallopers Time And Tide and Fine And Dandy to many Gr 1 successes when trained by the late Harry Plant. Moses also owned a bonny little chestnut filly with a white blaze, Guilia, who was trained by the late T.J. Smith. She carried the colours to victory in a Gr 1 AJC Champagne Stakes with the late George Mulley on board. Smith also won the Golden Slipper for Moses in those colours with Fairy Walk with the late George Moore on board.

The last good racehorse I can remember to carry those coloursa for Moses and Smith was Cheyne Walk, who won a QTC Grand Prix with Mick Dittman on board.

Queensland trainer Bryan Guy has been doing his bit to jog the memory with a couple of sets of colours he has recycled lately. The white pink sash and cap of the late Lisle Bros from Bathurst were on Platinum State when he won at Eagle Farm last week. The Lisle's were long term client's of Bryan's late Dad Ray, and were carried by many good gallopers. none better than All Our Mob, who Bryan won his first Gr 1 race with when All Our Mob and Kevin Moses won the Stradbroke.

Bryan had only just taken over the team after his father's death when All Our Mob won Queensland's premier race. Bryan has also been using the pale blue, brown sleeves and pale brown cap a bit lately. These colours were carried to many sprint victories in Sydney in the 70's by a flashy chestnut gaslloper trained by his Dad, Itchy Feet.

Itchy Feet was ridden in most of his wins by Billy Burnett.

A couple of interesting recycled names appeared recently one being Crusader King. The former Crusader King was a good stayer in the 70's when trained at Randwick by the late "Skeeter" Bentley and was owned by then leviathan punter Malcolm Rich. In fact Crusader King landed a plunge at Rosehill one day when ridden by the late Jack Green's very promising apprentice, the late Ray Carroll.

Ray was showing signs of being "anythiong" and spent a good part of his early career riding travelling to Canberra each weekend where he rode many winners for Queanbeyan trainer Archie Turner.

Unfortunately Ray died prematurely from drug related issues.

Another name that hit me in the head recently was Suzanne. In the 70's T.J.Smith trained a very classy little mare of the same name for the Bootle family of Narromine.

JOCKEYS COMING AND GOING:

Aussies Vlad Duric and Ronnie Stewart have decided to return back to Australia after several years and a great deal of success in Singapore.

Stewart of course won the Triiple Crown in Singapore on brilliant mare Jolie's Shinju and has also won three successive Singapore Gold Cups on the dour stayer El Dorado Gold.

Duric has also won many feature races in Singapore and has been near the top of the jockey's table since his move there a few years back.

Victorian jockey Stephen Baster, who rode a winner at Flemington yesterday, leaves for Singapore this week.

The grapevine says that Jeff Lloyd, who won the recent International mile in Hong Kong on Able One for John Moore, is contemplating returning to Australia after three seasons in Hong Kong.

MATES HAVING SOME MIXED FORTUNE:

Unanimously, a cracking little racehorse part-owned by my friend Bob Grynberg, scored the biggest win of his career when he won Friday night's $100K Canterbury Classic (1200 metres) with Tommy Berry on board.

The ultra-consistent galloper, trained in Canberra by Matty Dale, has only missed a place five times in his 19 outings, and two of those were fourths.

Bob wasn't at Canterbury on Friday night as he is holidaying with his family down in Thredbo and I spoke to him on Saturday morning and he was chuffed with the win.

Leo Cullen, a part-owner of Tykook, had no luck at Flemington yesterday when she was unplaced. The dual Adelaide metro winner appeared to struggle with the 1400 metres trip yesterday.

Rob Connors, who is part of the Supreme Syndications ownership of My Cherie, has told me that filly will now be spelled and brought back in the autumn after her second to Cindarockinrella at Rosehill a couple of weeks back.

The Choisir filly did a great job, progressing from a midweek Canterbury win to a Saturday second at only her third start and this filly looks a certain metro winner again in the future.

PROTEST HOO HAA:

I must be "off the planet." Within seconds of the horses going past the past in yesterday's Magic Millions on the Gold Coast - SKY Racing World showed the head on and I rang a friend, Mark Ferguson, and told him that I felt that Dreiffontein would win on protest.

Nash Rawiller showed complete disregard for the rules when No Looking Back began to shift ground dramatically in the final 100 metres of the race and he just kept hammering and impeding Drieffontein in the final stages of the race.

Drieffontein was actually coming back at the winner - but then had no hope over the last 100 metres and the winner continually came out under her neck.

It is interesting that stewards now want to view footage of trainer Gai Waterhouse discussing the pending protest with her jockeys Nash Rawiller and Tommy Berry as Berry considered lodging the objection. Waterhouse, for once, kept her opinions to herself in the steward's room opting not to question either jockey or say anything but "no" when asked if she she wanted to add anything.

The upholding of the protest was second time a controverssial protest was upehld in the Magic Millions, back in 1985 Ron Quinton got the race on protest on the Neville Begg-trained Molokai Prince who beat the Kelso Wood-trained John Marshall ridden Prince Regent.

There was another instance in later years when the late Ken Russell won the race for Bart Cummings on Malibu Magic, narrowly defeating the stablemate and favourite, Tristanagh (ridden by John Marshall). Marshall wanted to object but Cummings told him not to.

This is not unusual for Cummings as Shane Dye told me himself that Bart did not want him to protest when he was second on Shiva's Revenge in the Melbourne Cup behind Bart's then-wonder mare Let's Elope.

Dye ignored Cummings protestation.

It would appear the fallout from yesterday's protest may not be over yet.

APPRENTICES - IT'S EMBARRASSING

For may years racing in NSW in particular has suffered with a dearth of top flight apprentice riders. Sure, at any given time we have had one or two stand out riders, but the current crop of apprentices in this State has a depth I have not seen for many years.

And it is not just confined to the kids who are knocking up riding winners in town. The bush is currently also producing a handful of kids who I am sure in the next couple of years will be our glamour apprentices in the big smoke.

Currently Chad Schofield, Sam Clipperton, Josh Adams and Shaun Guymer are heading up the metro hype.

But Leeton maestro Peter Clancy has a kid called John Kissick, who is an absolute perler. This boy is a very mature, thinking rider and he is constantly riding doubles and more on the country circuit. Clancy, who I have known since I was 14, was a former top flight amateur jockey before he turned his hand to training and he has put the polish on plenty of top bush apprentices including Timmy Clark who is now riding in Hong Kong (after having won a Sydney apprentice's title).

Kissick looks set to follow in his footsteps. Jake Pracey-Holmes (who is with Peter Nestor at Dubbo) is another boy headed for town if he continues to keep his feet on the ground and improve. This boy has been flying out west and is a very good rider. Jason Collins (with Neil Osborne in Canberra) is another good young boy with a load of talent and up the northern rivers I have been impressed with young Kurt Matheson.

All of these should make their mark in town - probably after the spring carnival and we will end up with another batch of talented boys from the bush.

After all that is where John Marshall, Danny Beasley, Hugh Bowman, Ron Quinton, Tim Clark,  Jay Ford, and many other top apprentices got their race riding start before going on to become top class jockeys.