The fanfare as Courage Under Fire made his way to the track in January 2000 at Moonee Valley for a heat of the Inter Dominion was like nothing else in recent time at that time.
The “Mighty Mouse”, having won 24 straight races to kick-start his career. He was seemingly perfection, surrounded by his human entourage as the powerful pint-sized pacer arrogantly strode on to the big stage. If a racehorse was ever unconquerable, this seemed that.
Enter Kyema Kid. No slouch, no Courage Under Fire either, but courage of a different nature that night. Striding by the champ in front of a huge crowd. We’d all just survived “Y2K”. But as Dan Mielicki famously declared, “The world must be ending!”
Fast-forward 20 years. Last night at Tabcorp Park Melton all eyes were on the TAB Smoken Up Sprint. Not just harness fans, but newbies from all codes, all sports, wanting to “find out more about this Ride High”. It propelled the Ride High discussion to No.14 on the Melbourne Twitter trends map during a heightened AFL finals period. No mean feat.
The drama began as the horses were in the Parade Ring before the Smoken Up Sprint. Several lights unexpectedly went out along the front straight, resulting in a lengthy delay and an electrical technician summoned to explore the situation.
Ride High and his rivals went back to the stables. The race was rescheduled.
The horses were then back in the parade ring, but the lighting issue rose again, and this time required a complete shutdown of the system to keep the remainder of the night on track. A further delay ensued.
Third time lucky, and with the lights back in action, the horses completed their preliminary warm-ups and Ride High was sent out a $1.10 favourite. Unbackable and seemingly unbeatable.
The Clayton Tonkin-trained pacing powerhouse was forced to motor hard mid-race to overcome his extreme back-row draw, eventually getting to the chair. And when he glided by the race leader Cruz approaching the home corner it appeared a case of ‘how far?’ as predicted by most punters.
Normalcy had returned after a peculiar night.
Or so it seemed.
For as quickly as Ride High hit full tilt, he appeared to tire. The calvary arrived, sprinted past the favourite, and Rishi at odds of $120 produced a famous victory in the race named in honour of his trainer Lance Justice’s best-ever pacer, Smoken Up.
And as was the case 20 years prior, Mielicki delivered a line sure to become almost as famous: “The lights have gone out in a different way – this is a massive upset!”
All honours to popular Ararat reinsman Michael Bellman, who drove Rishi, Justice, and the hard-working technical crew at Tabcorp Park Melton for ensuring the race eventually went ahead in trying circumstances.
To the victor goes the spoils. The quaddie paid over $25,000. I wonder if Rishi’s owner, long-time industry supporter, John Hawke, had a live ticket.
Most punters were flabbergasted. And that’s racing.
Now, the next 24-48 hours will be as intriguing as last night and as next Saturday night’s Pryde’s EasiFeed Victoria Cup, because fans will be glued to the channels to find out how Ride High pulled up and whether the superstar will take his place in the $300,000 Grand Circuit classic at Melton next Saturday night.
Will we have to wait longer after all for the long-awaited and much hyped clash between Ride High and Lochinvar Art?
Perhaps we’ll have to turn to the 2021 TAB Summer of Glory for that score to finally be settled?
What is certain is that we’ll learn a fair bit more today/tomorrow, then on Tuesday morning when the barriers are drawn for the Vic Cup. And we’ll learn a stack more next Saturday night. And it’ll be a magnificent show.
But the biggest learnings of all may come in February 2020, because if “the clash” doesn’t occur beforehand, the A.G. Hunter Cup would surely become the most anticipated in modern history.
HRV – Cody Winnell