Darwin trainer Phil Cole and wife Rhonda had eyed the 2022 Birdsville Races for ages before taking a team of 11 horses to the remote location in outback Queensland.
It’s roughly 2280km from Darwin to Birdsville – located in the south-western pocket of Queensland near the borders of South Australia and the Northern Territory – with the Coles heading off a short time after having runners at the Katherine Cup Day meeting on August 13.
The Coles couldn’t run their horses at Mt Isa en route to Birdsville when their jockeys couldn’t make the trip because of flight issues, so they had no other option but to give a majority of their stable a run at the Betoota races on August 27.
Racing at Betoota – located 167km east of Birdsville – where the Coles picked up a few minor placings without winning a race on the six-event program proved a masterstroke as they ended up winning five of the 13 races at Birdsville on Saturday and Sunday.
And that includes winning the feature race on both days.
Former Victorian galloper Saccharo, with Longreach-based jockey Robert Faehr in the saddle, finished strongly to take out the $42,000 Birdsville Cup (1600m) by a tick over four lengths with the seven-year-old gelding saluting at the nice odds of $5.
Saccharo, who had a mixed 2022 Darwin Cup Carnival in his first campaign in the NT, was fifth behind The Autumn Sun in the 2018 Caulfield Guineas and finished second behind Vallabar in the Katherine Cup (1700m) a few weeks ago.
The following day Cole and Faehr teamed up again to win the $25,000 Lyndhurst Stud Open Handicap (1200m) when eight-year-old gelding Kronos led from start to finish against two other runners before posting a four-and-a-half-length win as the $1.90 favourite.
The previous week at Betoota, Saccharo finished third (1600m) and Kronos finished fourth (1000m) at open level with Faehr partnering both horses.
Birdsville Race Club vice-president Gary Brook said that for the same trainer, let alone the same trainer and jockey, to win both the Cup and the Sprint was indeed a rare occurrence in the history of the two-day race meeting.
It was the 140th anniversary of the iconic Birdsville Races with the 2020 and 2021 meetings scheduled for the first Friday and Saturday in September called off due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 2021 version was re-scheduled and took place earlier this year on April 10-11.
Rhonda Cole took Faith And Love and Do Your Best to that Birdsville meeting in April with the former winning and the latter racing over the two days for a third on the first day.
Phil Cole, one of the leading trainers in Darwin, has always eyed the Birdsville Races with the desire to have a runner in the Birdsville Cup, but the opportunity almost slipped from his grasp.
Birdsville received about 24mm of rain on the Wednesday and Thursday – three times its annual September rainfall – throwing the racing plans into disarray and forcing the closure of roads in and out of the small town.
There was every chance that Friday’s meeting would be cancelled as the dirt track was a bog before the Birdsville Race Club decided to switch it to Sunday.
The Coles would have had their hearts in their mouths having made the long trip to Birdsville and after what they endured at Mt Isa.
“I came to Birdsville 12 years ago and it got washed out, and we were lucky to race on Saturday,” Cole said.
“The races were delayed about two and a half hours to allow graders to work on the track before the horses went out so we had a good surface to race on.
“They were trying to talk about putting a Super Saturday on, but with the amount of horses running both days it probably wasn’t happening.
“There was one horse that won on Saturday and then backed up and won again on Sunday.”
Cole’s other winner on the Saturday was Crazy Lad (Robert Faehr) in a Class 2 Handicap (1200m), while his other runners were Ghetto (second), Kick It Baby (second) and Do Your Best (fourth).
Come Sunday, Faith And Love (Robert Faehr) saluted over 800m (BM55) to defend the race she won in April and Stroke Of Magic, with former Alice Springs trainer Sarah Robbins – who is now a jockey based in Miles, Queensland – in the saddle, won over 1400m (Class 3) to make it a treble for Cole.
Andaman (second), Do Your Best (third), It’s Pins (third), Ghetto (third), Kick It Baby (third), Maxaway (fourth) gave it their best shot on the second day.
“Robbie Faehr was an apprentice in Adelaide a long time ago and worked with my wife Rhonda, who was a stable-hand, for trainer Jimmy Smith,” Cole said.
“He came to Darwin to ride for us once or twice in the past.
“He’s over the moon and was pretty happy by the end of the weekend.”
Suffice to say the Coles are unlikely to forget their trip to Birdsville anytime soon.
“It’s a fantastic feeling – it’s my first runner in the Birdsville Cup,” the trainer said.
“Robbie (Faehr) just rode the perfect ride in the Cup – he just sat in behind the leaders and said he was never going to get beat.
“He won by a big margin and won eased down on the line.
“I had some owners here who travelled all the way down from Darwin and we had a good Saturday night celebrating.
“It’s just an iconic race – it has been running for 140 years out here.
“Everyone that wants to come to Birdsville has to travel a lot of kilometres and generally along dirt roads.
“It’s not for the faint-hearted, put it that way.
“We tried coming last year – we couldn’t come because of COVID.
“We had to change our plans around a bit and sent horses to Birdsville earlier this year in April.
“It’s great to come back – we’ve brought 11 horses and they’ve all performed pretty well.
“Having planned to come, I didn’t expect to probably have as big of an impact on the circuit here as what we’ve had.
“You can’t win it, if you’re not in it – so we’re very happy.”
Cole and South Australian trainer Kym Healy, who has been taking horses to Birdsville for years, are good mates and they ended up claiming the quinella in the Cup.
Magnossiva (John Keating), a seven-year-old gelding, who performed admirably during the recent Darwin Cup Carnival without posting a win, finished second behind Saccharo for Healy, who is based at Strathalbyn.
It was an agonising two days for Healy, who rarely misses a Darwin or Alice Springs Cup carnival, as he finished second on six occasions.
“I thought Magnossiva was my main danger in the Cup and Kym was probably disappointed,” Cole said.
“He’s been trying to win a Birdsville Cup for a while – it’s just unlucky I turned up this year.”
Considering Sunday was Father’s Day, Cole had another good reason to celebrate his Birdsville success.
“Well, we won another Cup with Kronos winning the Sprint, so we drank out of that as well,” he said.
“We’ve won the Pioneer Sprint in Alice Springs the last two years with Smuggling and prizemoney wise they’re our biggest wins.
“Probably a bit more satisfying as it’s one of the features in our home state, but how can I complain about anything after the weekend we’ve just had?
“There’s a lot of expenses to sort of travel half way across Australia, but we’ve had a wonderful couple of days and a fantastic time and we had a big bunch of Kym’s owners and my owners here.”
It appears certain that Cole will have runners at Bedourie – 187km up the road from Birdsville – this Saturday before heading back home to Darwin.
“At this stage all my horses have pulled up really well,” he said.
“I probably won’t run Kronos at Bedourie, but we’ll nominate him and have a look at the fields.
“Kronos is a very good horse – he’s my stable favourite.
“He’s a great horse fresh and we missed that meeting at Mt Isa, so he sort of had to race at Betoota and then backed up on the weekend at Birdsville.
“If there’s a winnable race, he’ll probably run around again at Bedourie.”
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