October
AprilMad indeed
"Mad as hell" was an appropriate heading for Ronnie O’Raighin’s letter (31/3). How absurd to say that horses trained in a "seachange" environment are prevented from breathing properly and hence lack success!
And this coming from a man from Euroa, the epicentre of heat- and dust-choked air in northern Victoria. Ronnie, you must have too many flies and locusts in your eyes up there to see where the real champions in this state come from.
Have you ever heard of Makybe Diva? She was trained at Rye to win her last two Melbourne Cups — right on the back beach. She would have bared her molars (as Jack Styring would say) to the winds whipped up in the Great Southern Ocean and taken huge gulps of fresh, clean, clear oxygen to help her win those cups.
Or what about Mummify, Hareeba and Cedarberg, just to mention a few. Then there was Kingston Town — he was from Merricks on the southern peninsula.
What about all the champions from New Zealand? Stand on any hill over there and you can see the ocean. It certainly never hurt the cardiovascular systems of Carbine or Phar Lap breathing all that crisp sea air.
The hottest trainer in the state at the moment is Anthony Freedman — he had three of the seven winners at Sandown on Wednesday March 28. That’s 43 per cent, Ronnie — all trained down the southern peninsula at St Andrews, right near Boneo, where Jim Houlahan trained all his great jumpers. They never had breathing problems winning all those Nationals!
Cranbourne South (Vic)