12/02/14

It’s always interesting picking up a Form Guide and looking through the fields. Names jump off the page at you occasionally because they are well named, but moreover because they have a positive name inferring lots of speed like “Flying”, or a negative name like “Cat”. Hence in putting up my weekly “What’s In A Name” I never ceases to come up with names to fill it up – for one reason or another.

 

So the first race I looked at in last Friday’s Form Guide was Eagle Farm Race 1 and I spotted the name Looks Like The Cat. That would have been a great name to take the Mickey out of, but he won, so I had to walk away. In the same race however there was a horse called The Monk. When I first saw the name, a smile enveloped my dial, as I recalled with fond memories a horse by exactly the same name – The Monk – that made a name for himself when I was only a teenager and would head out to Eagle Farm or Doomben on school holidays. I fancy he’d won me some good money one day at the track.

 

The horse that raced when I was a teenager as The Monk was trained by the late Jack Clayton, a man who liked to set a horse up for a plonk – and I noted over my formative years that he had some success at doing just that. The Monk that Jack Clayton trained was by the Great Britain born stallion Red Gauntlet and Red Gauntlet was brought to Australia to stand at stud in Australia after his retirement. Out on the racetrack of dreams, Red Gauntlet had won a couple of handy English sprints as a 3YO, namely the Festival Stakes over 6 furlongs (1200 metres) and the Jersey Stakes at 7 furlongs (1400 metres).

 

At stud in Australia Red Gauntlet produced many classy sprinters, the likes of the Terry O’Leary Sydney-trained Gay Gauntlet, the Eric Kirwan Brisbane-trained Prince Gauntlet and the flying sprinter Wayne’s Bid. All three of those sprinters won races that eventually became Group 1 events, as Gay Gauntlet won the 1968 Doomben 10,000 defeating the perennial bridesmaid Academy Star and the locally trained Dual Control. Prince Gauntlet won the Sires’ Produce in Brisbane in 1967 beating two locals – Montezuma and Quick Dollar and the Sires’ Produce was a Group 1 event before 2006, now it’s a Group 2 race. For his part, Wayne’s Bid won the 1976 The Galaxy at Randwick defeating two good horses – Sticks And Stones and Sizzler.

 

So whilst it is taken as read that Red Gauntlet could throw a classy sprinter, he also had a degree of success throwing middle distance horses and stayers. However whilst he produced horses like Hauberk, which won the 1979 running of both the Geelong Cup and Sandown Cup, Red Gauntlet could only sire two progeny that won over two miles (3200 metres). One was Gunderman which won the 1979 Duke of Norfolk Stakes at Flemington and the other was Jack Clayton’s The Monk which won the Queensland Cup over 3200 metres at Eagle Farm way back in the summer of 1971.

 

The 1969 Queensland Cup was won by Zarook and he ran second to Gunsynd’s year younger brother Sunset Red in 1970, but in 1971 it was The Monk’s turn – and he defeated Prince Meteor and Alcimaster. In fact, in a wonderful training effort by Jack Clayton in 1971, he trained The Monk to win the BTC Summer Cup at Doomben and the Eagle Farm double of the Fraser Handicap and the Queensland Cup, thus providing the duo with a clean sweep of the three big summer staying races that year. In all three of those wins The Monk was ridden by ex-Victorian jockey Terry Finger and interestingly before coming to Jack Clayton, The Monk had done his earlier racing in Victoria. The Monk was a 5YO when he won the three big races in Brisbane and during his career he won seven races in total.

 

The Monk from Brisbane in the 1970’s was foaled in 1966 and his mother was a mare called Alary. She was indeed an interesting broodmare, as a lot of people will have never heard of her sire Blueskin – and nor had I – before I started researching this story. However Blueskin’s most famous son or daughter would no doubt be Blue Era. In his racing career, Blue Era gained notoriety as being the horse that Mel Schumacher was riding when he leaned across and grabbed fellow jockey Tommy Hills leg “for 50 yards”, when Hill was riding Summer Fair in the 1961 AJC Derby. Schumacher was totally oblivious to the fact that head-on cameras were being used for the very first time in Sydney that particular day and he was subsequently banned for life over the incident, but only served five years.

 

This three generation tabulation of the breeding of the racehorse The Monk, which Jack Clayton trained reads:

 

 

Red Gauntlet

Nearula

Nasrullah

Respite

Red Shoes

Bois Roussel

Picture Play

Alary

Blueskin

Blue Peter

Freckle

Lady Macbeth

Foxbridge

All Glory

 

 

The 2014 version ofThe Monk, that raced last Saturday at Eagle Farm in the opening race, is by Magic Albert out of the Danzero mare Mawaared. In her racing career, Mawaared started just three times running one third placing and two fourths at the South Australian tracks of Gawler (twice) and Balaklava (once).

 

In his career-to-date, the modern day The Monk, which is trained at the Gold Coast by Peter Balzen, has started twice for a fifth of seven behind I Am Boss beaten just on eight lengths at Ipswich on 17/1/2014, before he ran sixth of 10 to Looks Like The Cat at 80/1 last Saturday, beaten officially just over seven lengths.

 

Based on his two runs to date, the 2014 version of The Monk doesn’t look like he’ll emulate the wonderful black type earning middle distance and staying feats of the 1966 foaled The Monk – but without seeing the modern day The Monk named in a Form Guide last Friday, I wouldn’t have given a second thought to Jack Clayton or his handy horse by the same name.

 

Reference sources used to assist me to pen this story were the Mark Oberhardt edited book Racing Through The Years and the Australian Stud Book website.

 

Today on www.brisbaneracing.com.au there’s the first of two montages of photos from Eagle Farm last Saturday, plus there’s also a photographic tribute to jockey achievers from last Saturday’s race meetings around Queensland. On www.sydneyracing.com.au there’s the story on the deceased stallion Bite The Bullet throwing the talented Bull Point as a broodmare sire, whilst on www.melbourneracing.com.autoday’s Mornington Cup runner Prince Of Penzance is put u