Each week Shane Templeton brings Winning Post readers a yarn from racing's past. This appeared in the July 25, 2015 edition.

So it’s the day after the Caulfield Cup and the spotlight shifts to Seymour.
Aztec Smytzer wins this cup but for most of us it is far from the highlight of the day.
With the crowd thinning by the hour we count down, anticipation high, to the running of the last event, an 89-rater over 1300 metres.
It is 2008. Hawthorn supporters are still celebrating the first flag for 17 years.
Imported horse All the Good is the latest Caulfield Cup hero.
Footscray’s Adam Cooney is the latest Brownlow Medal hero.
Clint Eastwood is starring in Gran Torino.
Liam Neeson is starring in Taken, which looks a lot like She’s Gone, starring Ray Winstone and released four years earlier.
Dark Knight and Twilight are the box-office smashes.
On TV, we are introduced to The Mentalist, Merlin and Leverage.
At Seymour, a potential star emerges.
Daintree Duke is the raging favourite for the last.
No wonder. Two weeks earlier he has made a huge impression with a four-length win at Benalla.
Daintree Duke is trained near Seymour by John Symons and Sheila Laxon.
He is by Royal Academy, the sire of John’s best horse, Bel Esprit.
This will be his sixth start.
He is already the winner of four races, his only miss a fourth at Caulfield.
After the mounting-yard preview for TVN, I interview John.
Without being smug, he sounds very confident.
Nick Hall canters Daintree Duke around to the barrier. I take my normal viewing spot in the yard. John is close by.
Daintree Duke is a stretch runner. He settles way back, which often at Seymour sets a horse too big a task.
Hall continues to bide his time.
He releases the brakes soon after straightening and the horse unleashes his brilliant speed.
He wins eased down by two lengths and breaks 1:16 for the 1300 metres.
On the day Viewed wins another Melbourne Cup for Bart Cummings, Daintree Duke is again in the last of the day and again a hot favourite.
Many punters have him one-out in the quaddie even though it’s not a great day for backmarkers.
Daintree is held up a little coming around the turn and at the 500 metres is simply too far from the leaders.
He steams home to run third and is immediately sent for a spell.
Seven starts, five wins, two excellent performances in town.
Early the following year, I am interviewing Sheila at a luncheon for Rotary in the Melbourne suburb of Ivanhoe.
After some preliminary questions, I ask her if, despite some falls and injuries, she is still riding serious trackwork.
She admits she is.
“Did you ride your Caulfield-Melbourne Cup winner Ethereal in track gallops?”
“Yes I did,” Sheila replies.
“What about Bel Esprit?”
Another affirmative.
“So I suppose one of those two would be the best horse you’ve ridden?”
The audience is gobsmacked when Sheila answers with her first “no”.
“Daintree Duke is the best horse I’ve ridden and the best horse I’m ever likely to ride,” she proclaims with clarity and certainty.
Early on a March day, John strolls out to say good morning to his new favourite.
Daintree Duke is on the ground and in obvious distress.
John hastily calls the vet.
The co-trainers virtually nurse the horse all through the day and night.
To no avail.
Daintree Duke dies. John and Sheila are heartbroken.
Victorian racing loses a budding champ.
And I realise I face a serious dilemma.
How on earth, over the coming years, am I going to explain it? To justify it?
That one of the best and fastest horses I have seen, during a lifetime of covering this sport, is a winner of just five races — and no open handicaps, never mind black-type events.
And none in town.