Caloundra's shining winter features

By Ross Stanley

The Sunshine Coast Turf Club’s most important features, namely the Caloundra Cup (Listed, 2400m), the Glasshouse Handicap (Listed, 1400m) and the Winx Guineas (Group 3, 1600m), have generated a range of fascinating elements. 

Below is an assorted selection that exemplifies the wide variety of scenarios associated with the triad that now boasts a $300,000 purse plus QTIS bonuses per event. 

The highlight of Corbould Park’s opening day on Thursday, July 25, 1985 was the Sunshine Coast Daily Cup. The first prize cheque of $16,500 was earnt by the 1984 QTC Metropolitan winner ROCK SHOW. Kevin Mitchell, the rider of the 8/1 pop, heeded Jim Atkins’ instructions and held up the son of the Goodwood and Doncaster winner Rock Roi (GB) until the final furlong. 

First step to supremacy

Thirty years later, a future household name was revealed on the only Cup day to be staged in May. 

In the 2015 Sunshine Coast Guineas, a contest for three-year-olds with Listed status since 2007, WINX finished like a rocket for Larry Cassidy. Her direct hit as $2.60 favourite was the launching pad for a stellar orbit that glittered without a flicker for 32 more racing assignments. 

Only one of Street Cry’s daughter’s 17 rivals was behind her at the 800m mark and she was still a light year away approaching the home bend. The filly from Vegas Showgirl then shook a leg in captivating style. 

Racecaller Alan Thomas labelled the win as “monstrous”. Yes, she quickly became an ogre to all her opponents.  

Next up, Winx followed a similar flight path at Doomben for Hugh Bowman at $1.95 in the Queensland Oaks. The bay, through her 43: 37-3-0 form line, banked a total of $26,451,175.  

The Guineas was elevated to Group 3 level in 2014 and has been known as the Winx Guineas since 2020. 

Other Group 1 connections

The Bostonian (NZ) relished his Queensland sojourns with five victories coming from six tasks for Cambridge trainer Tony Pike. The Jimmy Choux gelding’s 2018 credits were the BRC Daybreak Lover Stakes, Singapore Airlines Plate and the SCTC Guineas. 

A year later, at 40/1 for Michael Cahill, he won the Doomben 10,000 in which the favourite Nature Strip finished fourth. At Eagle Farm, the team saluted in the Kingsford-Smith Cup (Group 1) before missing the start and always being well back in the $1.5 million Stradbroke. 

The Bostonian proved his class with a 2020 ATC Canterbury Stakes (Group 1) victory and a head defeat in the George Ryder Stakes (Group 1).  

The Robert Heathcoate-trained Woorim was endowed with a brilliant turn of foot. His Black-Type successes for Damian Browne were the 2012 MRC Oakleigh Plate, 2011 BRC Sprint and the 2011 SCTC Glasshouse Handicap. Michael Rodd had the reins in the 2011 Chatham Stakes and Stathi Katisidis was aboard for his 2010 Glasshouse win. 

Ross and Judy Cutts, the exhilarating performer’s breeder-owners, bred and raced the bay’s sire Show A Heart. Their livery was also sported by the dam Wabble. 

Woorim was named after the Cutts’ address on Bribie Island, an ocean side spot around forty kilometres from the Glasshouse Mountains. 

Although a glasshouse can be a greenhouse for plants, Lieutenant James Cook applied the name because the shapes reminded him of the furnace kilns used to make glass in Yorkshire. 

In 2004, the then Sydney based hoop Larry Cassidy recommended to Wyong trainer Neville McBurney that he should target the $250,000 Ipswich Cup with Portland Singa (NZ). 

It was to be a lucrative outcome for Cassidy as he collected that Cup, the Caloundra Cup and then the 2005 Brisbane Cup on the mare that won a Taree maiden on debut at three. 

The Kiwi horseman, renowned for his patience and ability to develop stayers, knew what bloodstock was needed for carnival hits. 

Previously, he had struck gold with Lord Hybrow (1988 Doomben and Brisbane Cups, P J O’Shea Stakes), Praise Indeed (1998 Brisbane Cup) and Henderson Bay (2001 Ipswich and Caloundra City Cups, 2002 Sydney Cup).  

The progeny of Portland Singa’s sire Danasinga (1996 Stradbroke) included Metal Bender (2010 Hollindale Stakes -Doomben Cup double) and Piachay (2003 Brisbane Cup). 

Through her maternal sire State of Oregon (NZ), Portland Singa was a descendant of Three Troikas (Fr), winner of the 1979 French One Thousand Guineas and the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.  

Before Scenic Peak, with Michael Cahill as pilot, posted his 2002 Glasshouse Handicap win for Danny Bougoure’s Brisbane yard, the Scenic (Ire) gelding had gathered up the 2001 VRC Bobbie Lewis Quality and the 2001 VRC Yallambee Stud Stakes, a race he also won in 2002. 

In the 2002 spring, he finished the closest of fourths in the Toorak at Caulfield before prevailing in the $502,000 VRC Emirates Handicap (Group 1). 

Megablast (NZ), the 2018 Caloundra City Cup victor prepared at Pukekohe by Nigel Tiley and ridden by Damian Brown, tasted Group 1 glory in Auckland’s 2018 Easter Handicap (1600m). The grey was placed in the 2018 3200m event at Corbould Park that doubled as the Queen’s and Queensland Cup and the BRC P.J.O’Shea Stakes.  

Megablast by the Japanese based stallion Shinko King (Ire) was from Thirst (NZ), a mare by Sunline’s sire Desert Sun. Balmerino (NZ), the 1970s amazing globetrotter, also influenced the dam’s ancestry. 

The 2016 Guineas went to Michael Moroney’s charge Tivaci.

The colt by High Chaparral was bred by Bart Cummings and is closely related to Allez Wonder, his 2009 Toorak Handicap hero that was Michelle Payne’s first Group 1 success. 

Tivaci defied his foes in the 2017 ATC All Aged Stakes and was just behind the placegetters in the VRC Newmarket and ATC T.J. Smith Stakes. 

Cummings and jockey John Marshall scored a Glasshouse hit with Return To Go in 2000 while John’s son Taylor has picked up Glasshouse trophies courtesy of Krone (2021) and King of Hastings (2021). 

Never Been Kissed, Tivaci’s smartest daughter to date, chalked up a Group 1 victory in the 2021 ATC Flight Stakes. 

Oppressor, the 1993 Caloundra Cup winner for the Greg Mance-Glen Boss combination, added the 1994 VATC Toorak (Gr 1),1994-95 Grafton Cups and the 1995 Chelmsford Stakes to his resume. 

The Salieri gelding is a descendant of the legendary Ribot (GB).  

The Virtual Form Guide (October 23, 2002) noted that Donna Logan from Ruakaka took the six-year-old VICTORY SMILE to Queensland and the warm sun, in her words, made a man out of the late maturing horse as it did with many who followed the same path. 

When handled by Stathi Katsidis, the Victory Dance gelding was a close second in the 2002 Ipswich Cup before taking out the Caloundra Cup. Twelve months later, he was placed in both Cups. 

Logan, who described herself as a bad jockey, took Victory Smile home after he had parted company with Katsidisuring the running of the 2002 Grafton Cup. 

She gave him one run at Ellerslie prior to stepping him up to Randwick’s Metropolitan Handicap in the spring. At the wire, the 20/1 chance had more than a length on the runner-up Piachay.  

It was a case of winners are grinners. Victory Smile was the last and very cheap foal of Fluoride, a mare leased by the Matamata stud principal Allan Holmes from Ed Alcock, the Auckland dentist who named some of his other horses Double Wisdom and Mccavity.  

OOMPALA (NZ)’s third placing, at 50/1, for trainer John Wallace and jockey Larry Cassidy in the 1994 Melbourne Cup confirmed that Kampala’s son was up to Group 1 standard. 

The former Kiwi from the 1982 WRC Cuddle Stakes winner Asheen had earlier swept up a Gatton Cup, Newcastle Cup, Eagle Farm Tattersall’s Cup and the Caloundra City Cup when partnered by Chris Munce.  

Adept at the track

Paul Hammersley and Chris Johnson were respectively the victorious partners for Empyreal (NZ) in the 2005 and 2006 Caloundra Cups. On both occasions, a wet track was heaven-sent for the thoroughbred that had finished third in the 2005 Tattersall’s Cup. 

Peter McKenzie, the trainer of the His Royal Highness gelding, is remarkably versatile. The lawyer turned actor and horseman also landed the 1991 Caloundra Cup with Procyon (1992 Tattersall’s Mile), the gelding by McKenzie’s talented sprinter Mr Illusion (1984 AJC The Galaxy, BATC Stefan Sprint, 1985 Oakleigh Plate). 

On a large property near Wellington, he built up a massive band of broodmares and bred, raced and stood the fine stallion His Royal Highness. 

Other progeny of that sire that McKenzie put the polish on included Figurehead (1999 Rough Habit Plate; Queensland Derby, second), his sister Figurante (2000 Queensland Oaks, third) and Sculptor (2001 Great Northern Guineas, 2007 Ipswich Cup, 2006 Brisbane Cup, third). 

In 1999, McKenzie also brought the His Royal Highness three-year-old I Reign Supreme to Brisbane after he shed his maiden tag at Trentham at his second start. 

After his first eight tasks yielded two wins and a second, he left him with Kaye Tinsley for a year. He then won five of his 17 assignments, including the ill-fated 2000 Ipswich Cup during which eight gallopers came to grief. He picked up second prize in Yammer’s Caloundra Cup at his finale. 

McKenzie, who rode in amateur races while still at school, was in the cast of a King Kong movie. In the Lord of the Rings trilogy, he played the role of Elendil and won a stakes race with a horse of that name. 

When young heavyweight New Zealand jockey Chad Ormsby scored a maiden on Shenzhou Steeds, he sensed that the Ishiguru (USA) gelding had a big future. He advised Mike Moroney ,his future father-in-law, to buy him. The trainer was undecided but when the horse ran fourth when Ormsby tipped that the ground wouldn’t suit, a lower price was offered and the rest is history. 

The three times visitor to Queensland was unbowed after his first five runs here in 2011 and 2012.His best rewards were the 2011 SCTC Guineas (for Ormsby) and the 2012 Ipswich-Caloundra Cup double for Eddie Wilkinson. 

The other five chores in 2013 netted the runner-up prize in the Tattersall’s Cup and fourth money in the Caloundra Cup. 

Stakeswinners elsewhere

The following sampling of winners of Caloundra’s key winter races that collected stakes credits at other venues is another marker of the calibre of the competitors. 

Crack Me Up, the 2017 Guineas winner for Damian Browne, was a fine miler from Liam Birchley’s stable. He saluted in the 2017 ATC Villiers Stakes and at Eagle Farm in the Tattersall’s Mile and the Recognition Stakes. In the south in 2018, Danehill’s grandson downed his opponents in the Liverpool City Cup and he was only four-and-a-half lengths astern of Winx in the $1m George Ryder Stakes when fourth at 70/1. Back home, the son of Mossman and Clowning’s daughter Chuckle ran fourth at 20/1 in the Stradbroke. 

Robert Heathcoate’s talented lodger Hopfgarten (2016 and 2018 Wayne Wilson Stakes, 2014 BRC Gunsynd Classic, SCTC Guineas, BRC Brisbane Handicap) was also by Mossman. 

Sunset, a Telesto filly bred by Mossman’s owners Peter and Wendy Moran, claimed the 2000 SCTC Guineas. Her grand-sire was Mr Shannon, the Kiwi that prevailed in the 1986 QTC Sires Produce Stakes. 

In 2015, the Chris Waller-trained Index Linked (GB) eclipsed Shenzhou Steeds' weight carrying record of 58kg by capably coping with a kilogram more. 

Damian Browne, the successful hoop, registered more than 450 wins in New Zealand before shifting to the warmer climes of Queensland. All up, he scored 15 times in Group One company. 

A year later Hugh Bowman booted Index Linked home in the Tattersall’s Cup at Eagle Farm.  

The Zabeel gelding Ironstein, bred and owned by John Singleton, appreciated the spacious circuit at Corbould Park, securing the Cup in 2010 for trainer Gerald Ryan and jockey Michael Cahill.  

His 2011 haul included Sydney’s W J McKell Cup Brisbane’s Tattersall’s Cup and Melbourne’s Queen Elizabeth Stakes.   

Brad Stewart was wearing trainer Pat Duff’s famous colours when Hard To Catch snatched a narrow win over Peter McKenzie’s Our Lord Monty in the 2007 Glasshouse Handicap. 

The flashy chestnut was by Dodge (1998 Epsom Handicap, Queensland Derby, BTC Rough Habit Plate) from the Celestial Bounty mare Mrs Bligh. She was from the same family as another of Duff’s topliners in Handsome Prince. 

Stewart and Hard To Catch (50/1) were beaten a lip in the 2008 Stradbroke. Wins in the 2006 Prime Ministers Cup (1300m), BTC Sprint, 2007 Bribie Handicap and a Magic Millions contest ensured the sprinter membership of the Millionaires Club. 

Gossips (Mick Dittman) won the 1995 Cup for Leon Corstens’ Melbourne establishment. Wags smirked when an announcement of a gear change for the 1994 VRC St Leger  involved the wearing of a tongue tie. 

Osca Warrior was a case of pass the parcel. The chestnut by Zedative had stints in the hands of Garry Lunn, Gary Portelli, Eric Ropiha, Kris Lees, Michael Lynch and Gwenda Markwell. 

Ropiha, the Toowoomba trainer whose father Eric (Senior) prepared Ilumquh (1960 Caulfield Cup; Melbourne Cup, third), picked up the 2002 Recognition Stakes, 2003 Glasshouse Handicap, the QTC Ascot Handicap and the runner-up cheque in the 2003 TTC Weetwood Handicap with Osca Warrior. 

Ropiha, who had a lengthy period with Jim Atkins, gained another Glasshouse in 2009 with Lucky Luna, a 14/1 pop that was the second emergency. 

Osca Warrior progressed to take out three more black type offerings in Sydney and a second place in the 2004 Toorak at Caulfield for Markwell.  

After her mating with the Danehill stallion Danachenka, the Conquistarose (USA) mare Special Class (NZ) injured a hock bone during her pregnancy. She was gifted to Debbie Argue, a stablehand with Beaudesert trainer Ben Ahrens who appreciated that the mother-to-be would need plenty of dedicated care.  

Although the resultant foal Spechenka was a feisty, injury prone cuddy, the camp always had faith in the bay endowed with the genes of Nijinsky and Nashwan.  

After he delivered the  2010 AJC Summer Cup (Gr 3), he was on top in the $200,000 2011 Caloundra City Cup.Following a 14 run drought, Ahrens sharpened Spechenka up by putting him over hurdles and adding a tongue tie.  

With Ryan Wiggins in the pigskin, the stout stayer collected the 2012 BRC Queen’s Cup. Argue grossed $520,000 courtesy of a 12 times winner that was fortunate to see light of day. 

The 2013 Caloundra Cup win on a heavy surface by New Zealand’s Zennista (Damian Browne) came off the back of a close third in the Brisbane Cup for her Awapuni conditioner Lisa Latta. 

The brown mare’s Japanese sire Renno Rob Roy added an international flavour to her Sunshine Coast presence. 

Zennista also had a homeland second in the New Zealand Oaks and Group Three victories in the 2012 Tauranga Stakes and Auckland’s Sofitel Stakes in 2013 and again in 2014 after running third in the Caloundra Cup. 

Local joy

During this century, the former New Zealand rider Damian Browne topped the Corbould Park premiership eight times and collected the laurels in three Caloundra Cups. Ken Pope was the leading rider there five times. 

Pope’s triumph in the 2007 Cup on King Latarmiss was very special because it was a breakthrough for Trevor Miller, the track’s champion trainer for 12 seasons. 

The paths of Miller and Pope first crossed when they were both plying their trade in the far west while based at Cunnamulla and Charleville. 

In 2005, Miller tipped King Latarmiss to the readers of the Sunshine Coast Daily. He was correct except it was two years too soon. 

Hopefully the newspaper followers stuck firm because 50/1 was the 2007 starting price for a galloper that had earnt six of his nine first prize cheques on wet surfaces, had run well for fourth in the $100,000 Rockhampton Cup, grabbed second money over the course and distance the week before and had filled fourth spot in the 2004 SCTC Guineas. 

Another longshot in Flame of Citrus upset the applecart at 66/1in the 1994 Cup.  

Bruce McLachlan’s charge Raw Instinct was a good money spinner. The Housebuster (USA) gelding’s credits included the 2003 Caloundra Cup for Jim Byrne, Randwick’s Tattersall’s Cup, 2004 Brisbane Handicap and the 2004 STC Underwood Cup. 

After Bruce McLachlan passed way in 2009, the Sunshine Coast Turf Club honoured the multiple premiership-winning trainer with a Classic for juveniles on Cup day.  

Naturally emotions ran high when Gentle Giant (Eddie Wilkinson, $16), prepared by Bruce’s son Jason, was first home in the inaugural $110,000 edition in 2010. 

“This means more to me than a Magic Millions or Golden Slipper. It means more than anything,” said Jason, who had co-trained with his father. 

Gentle Giant was named after Bruce, the affable, popular, top tier conditioner who also combined with Brian York to land the 1989 Caloundra Cup with Jabba Hut.  

The name Wapiti is a term for the descendants of the 20 elk introduced to New Zealand as a present by the American President Roosevelt in 1905. The thoroughbred by that name is called Moose by his Caloundra trainer Gary “Jack” Duncan.   

After the gelding by the Mossman stallion Love Conquers All failed to meet its reserve of $40,000, its breeder Carolyn Hickey opted to part-own the that has already secured $580,000 in prizemoney.  

 Wapiti took out the 2020 Winx Guineas for Sean Cormack with his stablemate Love Express holding down third place. 

A year earlier Duncan survived a heart attack at Doomben. Fortunately, his clients Brendan Styles and Michael Reid, who were there to watch their horse Adonisea run, came to the rescue. The pair’s training kicked in for the initial CPR on Gary. 

Monsieur Gustave found a purple patch in 2017, claiming four in a row mainly for Tiffani Brooker. The member of Darryl Hansen’s Caloundra yard picked up the Eye Liner, Glasshouse, Keith Noud Quality and the George Moore Stakes. 

After a putting in a handy effort for third at Doomben in February 2018, Baccarat Baby won five in a row before her Caloundra mentor David Vandyke had a throw at the stumps in the $500,000 Flight Stakes at Randwick. With Michael Hellyer aboard, the Casino Prince filly (40/1) was fifth in, a mere three parts of a length from the victress Oohood. 

The same unit took out the 2019 SCTC Princess Stakes (Listed) and filled a place in the Fred Best Classic (Group 3), the Queensland Guineas (Group 2) and the 2020 Wayne Wilson (Listed).Ryan Maloney was the partner when the bay was third in the Sapphire Stakes (Group 3). 

The states of origin

The Caloundra Cup was not run in 2020. Of the 30 editions staged since it became a Listed event in 1992, New Zealand-bred horses have picked up 18 Cups while Australian products have scored nine times. Although Le Don De Vie (GB, 2022), Igraine (Germany, 2019) and Index Linked (GB, 2015) are the only Northern Hemisphere imports to score thus far, more than half of the contenders in 2019 were born in Europe. 

Breeding brevities

Le Don De Vie, which means the gift of life, is by Zaaki’s Brazilian sire Leroidesanimaux, an Eclipse Award winner in the USA was principally a miler that acquired three races at the elite level. 

Le roi des animaux translates as “The king of the animals”.      

Two Epsom wins and one apiece at Goodwood and Windsor were in Le Don De Vie’s locker before he departed England’s shores. He was on top in the 2021 Warrnambool Cup for the Anthony and Sam Freedman team but was in the hands of the Ciaron Maher-David Eustace partnership for his 2022 assignments. 

On a heavy surface, with Nash Rawiller as captain, he was the favourite and easily mastered Arapho (Fr) and Pappalino (Fr) in the 2022 Caloundra Cup. 

Le Don De Vie failed officially by 0.02 of a length to land the ATC Metropolitan Handicap last spring. 

Brayroan (NZ), the 2014 Cup victor, is a genetic blend of stamina and speed. His sire Zabeel threw the Melbourne Cup winners Jezabeel, Efficient and Might and Power while the dam Compulsion traces back to the brilliant juveniles Bold Promise and Luskin Star. 

Winning jockey Chris Munce was excited. His wife Cathy was the foreman for her father Barry Mitchell, the Eagle Farm trainer who tended to Brayroan. 

The 1996 Glasshouse winner Dry Humour (NZ) for jockey Gary Doughty and Victorian trainer Colin Little was a full sister Ha Ha (2001 Golden Slipper, Flight Stakes). They were by Danehill (USA) from the Crown Jester mare Very Droll. 

The wrap

The Sunshine Coast Turf Club’s principal fixture is a thrilling final act before the curtain comes down on the winter carnival. Although the cast and script changes annually, the three central “characters” are appealing constants. 

At the conclusion of his report about the inaugural meeting in 1985, the Courier Mail journalist Jim Anderson wrote: “The Sunshine Coast Daily Cup should be here to stay”. 

To the joy of players of the staying game, the classic distance for the contest has not been reduced since the race’s inception. 

The metric mile of the Winx Guineas sustains the tradition of Newmarket’s semi-classics, the Two Thousand and One Thousand Guineas. 

The 1400m trip for the Glasshouse is the ideal step up from the Eye Liner and the Healy Stakes. 

Cup Day has developed a high level of community support and interest. A different sponsor has backed the distance event for every year this century. 

The initial single day mid-week program grew to a two day festival before the allocation of the standalone Saturday status. Although the Victorian and Kiwi visitors are keen to chase the attractive purses, they are happy to have a runner or two. In fact, the horses and the humans relish the weather.