It is mid-afternoon on Tuesday, just five days out from the Pryde’s Easifeed Victoria Cup in which Mick Stanley has one of major contenders, Rock N Roll Doo.
I ring Stanley for a chat about his latest stable star and hear the clip clop of horses in the background. “Hi mate, are you still in the stables?” I ask. “No, I’m at the Mildura gallops.”
That is a snapshot of the life of Stanley and his wife, Gen, and their two daughters – Gabi and Annabelle – since the family increasingly added training thoroughbreds to their long and successful harness operation near Ballarat.
“It sounds strange, doesn’t it?” Stanley laughed. “If you’d told me even five years ago, I’d have a leading Victoria Cup hope and be taking two gallopers to race at Mildura a few days before, I wouldn’t have believed you.
“But we’ve evolved, we’ve had to evolve with a farm to keep and a young family as well.
“These days we’re about 70/30, maybe closer to 60/40, harness to thoroughbreds. Gen’s got the thoroughbred (training) licence and we’ve got about 10 on the books, including some young ones we bought at the sales.
“I’ve taken all the steps to get my (thoroughbred) licence, too. It’ll happen at some stage.”
CLICK: A RUNNER-BY-RUNNER BREAKDOWN OF THE VICTORIA CUP
But it won’t happen as soon as it might have, thanks largely to the emergence of the big, raw, gangly and even goofy Rock N Roll Doo.
The four-year-old’s impressive feature race wins at his past two starts put him up with the most exciting pacers in the land.
“We’ve loved him since day one. He’s kept us up and about when we’ve hit low patches and even thought about scaling right back and trying something different,” Stanley said.
“It’s been a long process, but we’re so glad he’s finally showing why we’ve always been so excited about him.
“Back when he was two, we had a young star called Bar Room Banta, who was a natural speed horse. He’s won two Group 1 races, but Rock N Roll Doo would sit on him, pull out and finish right with him, but he wouldn’t put it all together at the races.”
The doubters will say that, for all his improvement, Rock N Roll Doo is still too raw and has too many quirks to win a race like the Victoria Cup, which compares to the Cox Plate in thoroughbred circles.
“Maybe they’re right. Maybe right now, a middle-distance race like this isn’t the most suitable big race on the calendar for him, but think about a horse like Lennytheshark,” Stanley said.
“He had quirks and they never went away. He’d get his head on the side, run in or run out and still became a champion.
“We’d love to win this week, but whether he wins or runs sixth, it’s another learning curve for him. It’s another step towards where we think he could end up.”
Win, lose or draw, Stanley and his loyal owner and supporter, Brendan James, can’t wait for the future. And that includes a probable trip across the “ditch” for New Zealand’s biggest race of any code, the NZ Trotting Cup, on the second Tuesday in November.
“Not only do we think he can highly-competitive in an NZ Cup, and it’s such a great opportunity, but travelling away like that can help make a horse,” Stanley said.
But, before that, what about his Victoria Cup chances?
“He’s got the ability, but he’s going to need some luck, especially over this middle distance. He doesn’t have to win to make us happy, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he did, if everything went his way,” Stanley said.
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