Cairns team on fire

By Glenn Davis 

The tyranny of distance faced by many country trainers in North Queensland prompted Olivia Cairns to look for a new challenge in her life.

Formerly based at Mackay for 23 years, Cairns packed up and moved to Beaudesert where she now trains a team of 22 horses in work.

Dubbed the “Queen Of The North” following a string of feature successes in North Queensland, Cairns celebrated her biggest win since moving south when Fire King claimed the Country Cups Challenge Final in December last year.

Cairns had a number of highlights in her time in North Queensland, winning a Townsville trainers’ premiership as well as claiming the “big three” of the north - the Cleveland Bay (twice), Townsville Cup and Parry Nissan.

Fire King’s dominant win in the Country Cups Challenge followed Cairns’ previous victories in country features in Brisbane.

She won the inaugural Battle Of The Bush Final with Mason’s Chance in 2018 and won it for a second time with Ammoudi Bay in 2022.

“I moved to Beaudesert 12 months ago after spending 23 years in North Queensland,” Cairns said.

“I had a Land Cruiser up north which had done 330,000km in four years and I reckon I had driven it personally for 300,000km going to race meetings in that period.

“I got fed up with the miles I had to put in and I had nothing else to really achieve in North Queensland, so I decided to move south.

“My Mum and Dad breed a few horses at Canungra near Beaudesert and they’re at the age where they need a hand, so it was the right time to move.”

Cairns picked up Fire King for only $33,000 after he was passed in at two sales and the gelding has been a great money spinner earning more than $462,00 in prize money with his Country Cups Challenge triumph.

“He was passed in at the Magic Millions and Rockhampton sales but we managed to get him for $33,000,” Cairns said.

“When I first saw him he was very small, and he’s still not that big. But when I ride him he feels a much stronger and bigger horse than what he really is.”

Fire King has always been close to Cairns’ heart as the five-year-old is a half-brother to her former stable star Last Chance who is now retired after being moved on to Sunshine Coast trainer Shaun Dwyer.

Among Last Chance’s 17 career wins were Newmarket Handicap and Tatt’s Sprint victories for Cairns at Rockhampton in 2021 before Dwyer took over the following year.

Cairns rides Fire King in most of his work and gave the son of Worthy Cause a great chance of winning the Country Cups Challenge Final.

“I ride him work most times and I thought he was a great chance of winning the final,” Cairns said.

“He always races well and he has a super will to win.”

The Fire King story began in Townsville in February 2021 when he finished midfield as a colt on debut in a two-year-old maiden race at Cluden Park.

“We bought him mainly for the QTIS races in North Queensland but he missed one of the big races, the Parry Nissan, because he wasn’t ready,” Cairns said.

“We were a campaign behind with him after we gelded him early on.”

Fire King returned from his spell to produce an amazing run of four wins and nine placings from his next 13 starts.

He was placed at his first four starts on three separate tracks at Rockhampton, Townsville and Mackay in May and June of 2021 before he finally broke his maiden status at Cairns in July that year.

Although he had been in work a long time, Cairns continued with his preparation right through to October that year.

In that time, Fire King started eight times for three wins and five seconds, defeating some of North Queensland’s up-and-coming sprinters such as Isis Carmella, Ahooshu and Attackabeel.

In his next campaign, Fire King displayed his toughness with a further 18 starts, racing every month for the next nine months from January through to September 2022.

He won a further three times and was placed on another 10 occasions to prove he was one of North Queensland’s most consistent and tough performers.

He failed to collect prize money only three times when fifth in the QTIS Jewel Qualifier at Mackay, the Capricorn Yearling Sales Classic for three-and four-year olds at Rockhampton and at the end of a long campaign in the Cairns Amateur Sprint.

In that time, he was unplaced only once when fifth in the QTIS Jewel Qualifier at Mackay in February 2022.

Fire King had to have five country starts to qualify for the Country Cups Challenge Final in Brisbane which saw Cairns’ petrol bill skyrocket.

“From Mackay, we went to several country tracks to qualify him and they were probably all eight hour trips,” Cairns said.

“He’s just so tough and so very versatile.

“He can get back in the field or lead if he has to and has won from 1000 to 1600m.”

Since his Country Cups Challenge Final victory, Fire King had another start in an 1820m Benchmark race at Eagle Farm in late December.

However, he failed to replicate his feature win and tailed off last at his first start past 1600m.

“He jumped four points in the ratings and had to carry an extra 5kg at Eagle Farm to what he had in the Country Cups Challenge Final.”

Before beginning her training career in 1998, Cairns was a former jockey who was badly hurt in an horrific fall at Cluden Park.

She spent two weeks in hospital and lost half of her liver due to the impact of the fall.

“I’m lucky to be alive really,” Cairns said.

“It was a bad fall and I lost half of my liver.

“I turned to training soon after with one horse and poked along for a while before I went professional in 2002.”

From her humble beginnings as a North Queensland trainer, Cairns has made a huge impact on the training scene in the State.

She is now aiming Fire King for her next big challenge to claim a third Battle Of The Bush in June.

As the adage goes, the will to win means nothing without the will to prepare.