GUS PHILPOT – MAY LADY LUCK SMILE UPON HIM AND DAME FORTUNE WALK BESIDE HIM ONE DAY IN BRISBANE RACING

08/05/14

There are obviously many fascinating stories in the history of thoroughbred racing in Queensland in the post World War 2 era, but it’s doubtful that two could be as controversial as affected a man who today is a low-profile Rockhampton based trainer – Gustaf (call me Gus) Philpot.

Way back on 18 August 1984, Gus Philpot had no idea when he was legged aboard a horse called Fine Cotton in an Eagle Farm Novice that from that moment forth his name would be forever etched in thoroughbred racing history for doing a good job to get the mount home narrowly, only to see the correct weight signal withheld – and the horse be subsequently disqualified after seemingly landing a 33/1 to 7/2 good old fashioned plonk, after his mount had been backed all over the country.

It’s fair to assume that had the plunge been successful, that young Gus Philpot may have landed on his feet financially from the expected huge sling, which would surely emanate from such a victory – possibly even to the point of being set up financially for life. Sadly fate never intended it so, although stewards acknowledged that Philpot had nothing whatsoever to do with the ring-in and the apprentice jockey walked away from the incident with his reputation totally unscathed.

The Fine Cotton ring-in was front page news again only recently in December 2013, almost three decades after the event, when that horse’s trainer, Hayden Haitana, was again granted permission to enter a racetrack by Racing Queensland.

Whilst the vast majority of people have no problem remembering Gus Philpot riding Fine Cotton as a young apprentice jockey, just 11 months later he figured in another major controversy that somehow the passage of time conveniently forgot. You see that young Philpot kid had attracted the eye of a wily, ageing Victorian trainer named Cyril Beechey, best known as the trainer who had put the polish on that wonderful galloper from the early 1970’s – Gay Icarus. Undoubtedly the best horse Beechey trained in his long and distinguished career, Gay Icarus certainly had no chink in his armour one day in October 1971 when he won the Caulfield Cup, defeating a classy line-up, as demonstrated by the fact that the talented Tommy Smith trained galloper Igloo ran second, whilst the classy Bart Cummings trained Big Philou clocked in third. The Caulfield Cup was amazingly one of nine feature races that Gay Icarus was victorious in during the 1971 calendar year. As a measure of his training ability, just four years later, Cyril Beechey again trained the winner of the Caulfield Cup – via Analight being successful.

Roll the clock on 10 years – to the Brisbane Winter Carnival of 1985 – and Cyril Beechey was 74YO and he’d brought with him to Brisbane a talented but very lightly raced galloper called Between Ourselves. A Remembrance Day (11/11) 1982 foaled son of the French born stallion Twig Moss and the Vibrant mare Open Question, Between Ourselves was only taken over by Cyril Beechey as trainer about two months before the Brisbane Winter Carnival. When he took the horse over, Beechey advised the media he had no grandiose plans for Between Ourselves, although he “liked the horse from a long term viewpoint”.

Beechey’s first Brisbane start with Between Ourselves was in a Novice Handicap at Eagle Farm on 7 June and he got the cash. Next time out and Between Ourselves jumped umpteen classes straight into the then Listed (now Group 3) Healy Stakes and he put a promising Brisbane based 20-year-old apprentice Gus Philpot on, as Between Ourselves was only handicapped with the postage stamp weight of 49.5kgs, or 7 stone 11 pounds in the old. The colt looked impressive in winning the 1985 Healy Stakes beating the talented and consistent Group performing Sydneysider, Manuan, which had been asked by the handicapper to lump eight kilos more than Between Ourselves. Philpot had ridden the Victorian 3YO to perfection and was now surely about to get his chance, whilst still an apprentice, to win a Group 1 race, the Rothman’s 100,000 (now the Doomben 10,000) and catapult his name back into the thoroughbred racing headlines around Australia – but this time for all the right reasons. Cyril Beechey advised Between Ourselves was Rothman’s 100,000 bound and as Beechey came from the old school where a word called “loyalty” was paramount, Gus Philpot would ride the horse in the Rothman’s 100,000. The only problem was that now the owner, a chap called Ray Richards, had finally seen via the Healy Stakes win exactly how good his horse was, so he overruled Beechey and told the press some days out from the Rothmans 100,000 that Philpot was “sacked” as “big races require big name jockeys”. He’d engaged leading lightweight Sydney big money rider, John Marshall, for the Rothmans 100,000 ride. The first time Marshall ever met Beechey was at the races on Rothmans 100,000 day.

Rothman’s 100,000 day arrived and in the race that was worth $235,000 in total prizemoney, the 3YO Between Ourselves romped in with his 49kgs impost, beating the wonderfully talented stallion that had led the race, Daybreak Lover (57kgs), by 1.75 lengths, with Concrete (54kgs) running a close third, as a hopeful young apprentice named Gus Philpot could only sit in the grandstand and watch the race unfold before his eyes.

Between Ourselves Rothman’s 100,000 victory was his seventh win from his 11-start career to that point and on the following day, an Ian Manning, writing for the Sun-Herald wrote part of what trainer Cyril Beechey had said in his Rothman’s 100,000 presentation speech, namely, “Yes my stomach is turning inside out and I feel like jumping up and down on the spot, but there is still plenty of work to do with Between Ourselves at coming carnivals. He’s a real racehorse and I really didn’t think they had a chance of beating him today in this. I told you all, that he is capable of becoming a champion sprinter and I intend to see that he does. I tried to win this race with Mr Magic but I couldn’t. This is just fantastic”.

Ian Manning finished his long Sun-Herald newspaper article with these words, “Between Ourselves is no doubt one of the most promising stars on the Australian racing horizon and Beechey will plan a spring campaign to take in most of the Melbourne spring events.”

Somewhat incredibly, given all the hype surrounding the horse after his emphatic Group 1 Rothman’s 100,000 win, Between Ourselves never won another stakes race after the 1985 Brisbane Winter Carnival – and I have no idea what happened to him after that victory, so he must have gone amiss soon afterwards. I asked Gus Philpot that question yesterday afternoon and he pondered for a while before saying, “I think he raced again, but he didn’t win a black type race.”

Asked was Between Ourselves the best horse he ever rode in his career as a jockey, Gus said, “It would be a toss up between him and Clan O’Sullivan. I rode Clan O’Sullivan when he won his Maiden by eight lengths. They’d promised me the ride right through, the same as happened with Between Ourselves, but they took me off Clan O’Sullivan after he won by eight lengths and replaced me with (Grant) Cooksley”. Soon after winning his Maiden, Clan O’Sullivan won two Magic Millions 2YO’s on the Gold Coast in January 1992, one over 1200 metres in a race record time of 1.08.40, overall time which smashed the race record of the smart Tommy Smith trained filly, Bold Promise, by over one full second, and the other over 1400 metres, before running second in the Golden Slipper at Rosehill a few months later to Burst.

As recently as last Saturday, Gus who “turns 48 this year” and who has “about half a dozen in work” at his stables at Rockhampton, took the long drive north to Mackay and won a Class 3 event with his recent stable acquisition Shadowofyoursmile, which was capably steered by leading Rockhampton rider Adrian Coome, who had been at Eagle Farm in Brisbane the previous Saturday to land the money and steal the limelight with another Rockhampton trained galloper – Our Boy Malachi. Gus Philpot has had Shadowofyoursmile, a 3YO daughter of Dane Shadow and the El Moxie mare Leander Hall, for only four runs since “a North Queensland owner bought her out of Sydney” and sent her to him to train. Under Gus Philpot Shadowofyoursmile has won two of her four starts and run one second placing. Asked if he thought she could win a city race for him down the track, Gus replied, “I’ve only ever had one city runner, but I think she could win a race in Brisbane. I’ve just turned her out for a bit of a spell now and when I bring her back into work I’ll probably take her to Brisbane for one of those no metropolitan win (OMW) races. She’s a tough filly. Everything I throw at her she cops. I’ll let the Brisbane Winter Carnival happen and get all the good horses out of the road and then I’ll think about bringing her down to Brisbane”.

Gus’ wife is well-known jockey, Donna Philpot and 45-year-old Donna has been sidelined with injury for some time. I asked Gus how his wife’s injuries were healing and he replied, “Donna’s injuries are taking a long time to heal and to be honest I don’t think she’ll ride again. We are actually thinking of moving to Victoria, to somewhere like Bendigo or Ballarat, as there are so many more racetracks close to you there than there are here. Like Mackay’s a four hour drive from here (Rockhampton), whereas down there, there would be any number of tracks close by if you were at Ballarat or Bendigo, so it’s much more beneficial for a small trainer. And Donna could help me with the training of the horses there, without having to go back to riding and it would be a team effort”.

So after the high drama of the Fine Cotton ring-in, then losing the Rothman’s 100,000 ride on Between Ourselves all in the space of 11 months, then seven years later watching Clan O’Sullivan’s wonderful career unfold after steering the excitement machine to an eight-length Maiden win, hopefully one day in life a trainer from Central Queensland named Gus Philpot can have Lady Luck smile upon him and Dame Fortune walk beside him in the big smoke one day. There’s simply no question that he’s certainly served a long apprenticeship waiting for the day to come – for nigh on three decades by my reckoning.

Today on www.brisbaneracing.com.au there’s the second montage of photos from the Gold Coast last Saturday plus a couple more from the jockeys reunion from the Gold Coast last Monday. On www.sydneyracing.com.au there’s the story on Johnny Tapp’s pacer that’s on trial Saturday night for a possible Brisbane Winter Carnival tilt, whilst on www.melbourneracing.com.au Matt Nicholls writes objectively on the current suggestion of “Super Group 1” racing that has been endorsed by Racing Queensland Chairman – Kevin Dixon.

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