Black Caviar

By G Whateley

She has captured the heart of a nation like no sporting figure since the days of Phar Lap and Don Bradman. This is greatness the likes of which is rarely seen. This is a tale that will not weary. This is the authorised story of the horse that couldn't be beaten, by acclaimed journalist and broadcaster Gerard Whateley.
the updated and bestselling biography, written by acclaimed journalist and broadcaster Gerard Whateley, with a foreword by Peter Moody, BLACK CAVIAR documents the career of the racehorse who transcended the track to become an Australian icon. It begins with the entrancing story of champion trainer Peter Moody, a self-made man bred in the remote outback of Queensland, who came to select and guide the fastest horse the world had ever seen. Under Moody's patient and masterful guidance, the hulking injury-prone filly matured into a champion, idolized by a devoted following more akin to a rock band than a racehorse. Her gift is to defy the very nature of sport, making victory look both certain and effortless. With her invincible run and marauding dominance, Black Caviar has returned racing to the glory days of more than half a century past and secured a reputation that will echo for as long as horses are sent out to race. this edition features a new epilogue and updated tables.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Jun 11, 2013
• ISBN: 9781743096826

G Whateley

Gerard Whateley began his career in journalism with the Herald Sun. Synonymous with the ABC for more than a decade, he spearheads the Melbourne end of Grandstand Sport. Fast becoming an institution on radio he has a commanding presence on television opposite Barrie Cassidy on ABC1’s flagship sport program Offsiders in addition to hosting the nightly program on Fox Footy AFL360. He has called 18 of Black Caviar’s 25 wins.

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1

The Back of Bourke

Our best stories, our foundation stories, both fantastic and far-fetched, have their origins out the back of Bourke. In the case of Peter Gordon Moody’s story, this is not so much figuratively as literally true.

Wyandra is the desolate, dusty outback of Queensland, 840 kilometres west of Brisbane on the Matilda Highway. Halfway between the larger centres of Charleville and Cunnamulla, its existence is owed to the doomed explorer Edmund Kennedy, a Guernsey-born surveyor, who in 1847 set his expedition’s camp near the banks of the Warrego River. That imprint became a fixture on the great inland railway link by the booming 1890s, the settlement became vital to the movement of passengers, freight and mail to local properties.

John and Charlotte Moody had been among the pioneers of the Wyandra district before the turn of the twentieth century. John was a grazier who bought large parcels of property and wielded significant influence as one of the founders of Queensland Primary Producers’ Ltd. John and Charlotte had twelve children, all of whom settled in the surrounding Paroo Shire. The family property was Alpha, a 40,000-hectare sheep and cattle station. Two generations on, it was the home of Garth and Jan Moody. Their son Peter was born on 31 July 1969 and took his place at Alpha with his three older sisters.

Wyandra was remote and its people were resourceful. The shearing shed was on the main street and the General Store doubled as the Post Office. The lone pub was the faded weatherboard Gladstone Hotel. On the dusty tracks that deputised as roads, if you did not ride, you had to walk. In 1969 the town itself was still not connected to the state electricity grid, relying instead on the Power House. It was isolated and rough. You might have said this outpost was the land that time forgot, if you could be certain time had ever known the place existed at all.

The district was rich horse country. Horses were the pulse of the place, by necessity as well as for fun. Children learned to ride as they were learning to walk. Be they rodeo riders, boundary riders, jackaroos or stockmen, they were taught from the start that whatever they did with their horse, from breaking them in to shoeing and grooming, they did it themselves.

Wyandra staged gymkhanas and polocrosse competitions, and the Moodys raced thoroughbreds on the local amateur circuit. It connected them to the wider racing world at a time when folk, regardless of locale, marvelled at the deeds of Rain Lover lumping the top weight to complete his quest of back-to-back Melbourne Cups, a tale soured by the cruelty of the brazen nobbling of Cup favourite Big Philou in the lead-up to the race. The horse lovers of western Queensland did not have to look south much longer for inspiration and gratification. Out of the border town of Goondiwindi emerged Gunsynd to rule the turf in the years that a young lad was taking his inaugural strides in a formative passion.

Peter’s first steed was an old stock horse named Doubtful. Then, at the age of three he was given his own pony. He showed such a natural aptitude at the Neimenmulla Pony Club, held at nearby Rosevale Station, that they nicknamed him George Moore. It was the grandest accolade as Moore was the much-loved prodigy of Mackay, on Queensland’s north coast, who dominated the riding ranks in Australia like no other in a history-making partnership with trainer T.J. Smith. His record of 119 Group 1 winners remained out of reach more than forty years after his retirement. Smith had christened Moore ‘Cotton Fingers’ for his gossamer touch on the back of such powerful beasts.

Moody was six years the junior of his youngest sister so he learnt early to fend for himself. His toys were a .303 rifle with the bolt removed and a blue heeler-dingo cross. ‘You got kicked out of the house in the morning and you wouldn’t be expected back until you heard the dinner bell of a night. Inevitably you’d end up down in the cattle yards or the horse yards doing something you shouldn’t have been.’ As a child he was pulled from the bottom of a dam at the climax of such a misadventure, his life saved by a local ringer.

There was no pretence of privacy in Wyandra. The telephone resembled a party line with half a dozen properties sharing the same number. Distinctive ring tones identified the intended recipient but it was commonplace to have third parties eavesdropping on the conversation. The click of lifted receivers was the shameless giveaway. Everyone knew each other’s business, at least in part because many of them were related. When Peter started school, the student body numbered twenty-five, mostly from outlying stations. ‘Fifteen or sixteen of them would have been Moodys.’ In fact the Wyandra State School was located on Moody Street.

Peter was a child of the bush. There was no advantage and little comfort to his upbringing. His father was a regular at the Gladstone where he imbibed to a fearsome extent. Given the gruelling nature of extensive farming and the secluded life on the land, few would condemn the practice or diagnose the problem. As the decades passed without variation, many a man was worn down by that life. But it did reverberate at home. When Peter was eight, his parents separated. Garth Moody drank relentlessly, smoked addictively, lived hard and was dead by the age of sixty.

‘I used to cop a boot in the arse and a smack in the ear probably no more than I deserved but I still had a great upbringing. Dad used to take us to pony clubs and horse shows. I grew up with three older sisters so I was always protected from things. But you probably look back on it and if it weren’t for him I wouldn’t be where I am today. So you have your disappointments but you make the most of what’s afforded you.’

After the split, Peter’s mother Jan moved the children to Charleville, ninety-seven kilometres away. Had that not occurred, Peter expected he would never have escaped the Moody inheritance, left to chase sheep and cattle on the station forever more. Instead, he took his first step into a larger world.

The domineering quality of Charleville was resilience, for it was the proverbial land of drought or flooding rain. One often following the other with unrelenting force. It was a busy pastoral town on archetypal grazing country that retained elements of its heritage as a railway centre.

On the edge of the Charleville Showgrounds, carved out of the brigalow and the mulga, stood the racecourse. On the red dirt track, which puffed into clouds in the dry and spat mud in the wet, a boy would come to recognise the answers to all his future questions.

The community thrived on the half a dozen occasions each year the Central Warrego Race Club staged its meetings. Those days bound the community together. It was both a shared passion and a responsibility. The race meeting was the touchstone to raise critical funds for local projects such as its school and hospital. Socially, those days were vital to the fabric of Charleville. The harsh climate dictated that the racing season commenced in May and concluded with the annual highlight, the Charleville Cup on the first Tuesday of November.

The racing itself was unusually competitive. There was little money in western Queensland racing. The typical winner’s purse stretched to only a couple of thousand dollars, barely enough to cover the cost of having a horse in work. It was, instead, a matter of pride. Trevor Miller from Cunnamulla, Kenny Waller from Roma and Charlie Prow from Blackall were the district’s dominant trainers. But whether it was a hobby or a profession, many of the locals paid for the upkeep of a racing prospect. It ensured the betting ring was the hub of activity. Bookmakers were plentiful and they pitted their wits against the punters and owners. Each race operated on a charged fusion of the desire and the necessity to win.

When the Charleville card of five races was completed and accounts settled, the bookies joined the punters, and the trainers came with the jockeys to the Cattle Camp Hotel Motel. Over the years the TAB became its mecca and the late meeting from Toowoomba the focus of attention. There the racing folk would remain late into the night swapping tales of fortune and misfortune, until many retired to the motel, leaving the return journey for the following day.

Moody was instantly drawn into the heart of the local racing culture. He found the outlet he had sought beyond pony clubs and exhibitions. He was exhilarated by the Saturday races and intrigued by the preparatory work between meetings. By the time Gurners Lane ran down the mighty Kingston Town to win the 1982 Melbourne Cup, Moody dreamt of Flemington via the circuitous route of Charleville.

Peter took up with a couple of local trainers, mucking out stables and marking out his destiny. ‘Some people love dogs, some people love cats, some people love horses. For me they’ve always been a great mate.’

Tony Facey was one trainer happy to have a kid of such dedication around. Facey had forsaken a well-educated and close-knit family in Victoria, lured by the wide-open spaces of outback Queensland. As a teenager he had taken a job at Wyandra’s Glaverton Station and went on to work contract mustering and horse dealing in the surrounding area. He found notoriety through his passion for rodeo riding and aged twenty-four was crowned Australian Champion Bulldogger. As time passed, Facey drifted to Charleville running wild brumbies or putting together a mob of goats. In his forties he discovered a knack for training racehorses. Moody watched Facey rise to the rank of the Shire’s leading trainer in 1983 with such victories as the Charleville Newmarket Cup before his premature death three years later aged fifty-one. His mark is still measured with the annual running of the Tony Facey Memorial Plate at Charleville’s October meeting.

Facey had fatefully introduced Peter to another local trainer. Frank Cavanough was an old horseman who had survived for years on rat cunning and know-how. In him, Moody found a kindred spirit. And Frank taught him everything he knew from a lifetime in racing.

Cavanough trained exclusively for and on the private property of local bookmaker David Power. The owner regarded his trainer as ‘a big, rough old bastard. Very tough, hard man. But he was a good horseman’. While that was true enough, Cavanough proved a generous soul who took the time to educate young guys about horses and about life. What they learnt quickly was that he ruled with an iron fist. The first time he told them to do something, they got told. The second time they would get a backhander. There was no mucking about with Cavanough.

Peter began arriving at the stables before first light with an exercise book under his arm. Cavanough inquired what he thought he was doing with it. ‘I’m going to write down everything you do.’ Rather than doing the expected school homework, Peter would sit at the kitchen table each night, transcribing notes about every horse he had observed in the stable.

Such habits serve him well to this day. ‘I don’t have a great concentration span. When I’m relating to my horses and recording all of my information, I like to hand write it because I find that I then reflect on what’s happened. Quite often I might take something away from it that I mightn’t have remembered. It probably adds an hour to my workload each day but I find it very important that I reflect on the day’s events to plan for the future with the horses.’

A huge lump of a lad as a teenager, Moody was driving the race-day float, with Cavanough sleeping by his side, to every far-flung dirt and dust track in western Queensland in pursuit of winners. The white-haired trainer and his eager apprentice two generations his junior, were regarded with affection and curiosity throughout the district. Power recalled years later: ‘The way Pete has gone through the racing industry comes from his days in Charleville. Frank was an ex-pug and he’d also been a foreman on a road gang, and they clicked.’

The association with Cavanough is captured in a photograph from Roma Racecourse in 1984: the fifteen-year-old strapper planted commandingly alongside Coming Country after victory in the Purse Handicap. As if to show all the elements were already assembled, there stands Peter Moody under the classic bush Akubra.

With not only a view of, but also a place in the adult world, Moody was impatient to see more. The independence he had fashioned brought with it maturity. He mixed naturally with veterans and comfortably instructed those who, by age alone, were his seniors. He had a reputation as a big, tough bugger who would get stuck into other strappers and make sure they were doing their job.

Moody had a voracious appetite to learn but no tolerance for academia. Having completed Year 10, he surprised no one by formalising the view school was no longer for him. ‘I wasn’t a bad scholar. I wasn’t the worst. On the days that I went.’

Soon after, his horizons broadened. Frank’s grandson Brett Cavanough had also left school as a fifteen-year-old to begin the family induction. He had worked in a couple of Queensland stables while learning the delicate craft of horse breaking. Brett had an association with the country’s leading stable, Tulloch Lodge in Sydney, the kingdom of trainer Tommy Smith. His brother and right-hand man, Ernie Smith, had the job of replenishing the staff of an expansive operation. Admiring the stock Brett was from, Ernie asked: ‘Can you get me some of those real good country boys to come down here and work?’ Brett immediately thought of Peter and his cousin Alf. ‘There’s a couple of them here working in the shearing sheds.’

That recommendation was all it took. Peter rolled up his swag, jumped on a bus and set off. Beyond leaving his mother, he never hesitated, comprehending the opportunity he had been given. ‘You can learn a lot if you kept your mouth shut and your eyes open.’

With his eyes wide open, he saw for the first time a grass racetrack. The splendour of Randwick.

T.J. Smith was the greatest trainer the country had known. He rose from obscure battler, armed only with a brumby and the winnings from a two-up game, to become the world’s best in his craft. The magnitude of his rule is illustrated by the thirty-three consecutive training premierships in Sydney and the 279 Group 1 wins he amassed. His stable was a champion’s production line from Tulloch to Gunsynd to Kingston Town.

His story entranced Peter Moody. Tommy was the product of the small town of Goolgowi in the Riverina district of New South Wales. He had learnt the ways of horses from his father as they drove bullock teams and ran a breaking-in business together. He started with little more than his wits and the rogue galloper Bragger. But he took on and conquered the most competitive of racing havens. Peter had known the story better than any childhood fairy tale and cherished the fable contained within. He was a disciple long before he met the man.

That was in 1984. The Tulloch Lodge star of the day was the three-year-old Red Anchor, the chestnut who bounded away with that year’s Cox Plate and a week later claimed the Victoria Derby. It was a most instructive time not only for the equine endeavours. Tommy Smith had his legacy project well in tow. He was preparing his daughter, Gai, entrusting her with the tools and secrets to ensure she would succeed him in the years ahead and boldly expand an already rich inheritance.

Smith’s moniker of the Little General was well earned. As legendary as he was for his success, he was famously hard on his staff. Smith had retained the tough edge of his upbringing. He was demanding and a stickler for detail. He had an uncanny ability to identify the quality of a horse before his rivals did. The rest was built on a strong work ethic. Just like his people, he worked his horses fearsomely. The trademark look of the T.J. Smith galloper was bone and muscle.

The environment suited Moody perfectly. His dedication saw him rise to a level of responsibility. From strapping one horse, he took over the supervision of many. Soon he was orchestrating the work for a team of horses numbering more than a hundred.

In his three years with the stable, he soaked up the wealth of experience and knowledge possessed by veteran horsemen connected with Smith. Tom Barker served at Tulloch Lodge for forty years. He had a way with horses demonstrated by his time as the strapper of Kingston Town, the grand black galloper etched in folklore as the only winner of the Cox Plate, Australia’s championship race, on three successive occasions. Barker’s worth, though, seemed even greater with people. The man, nicknamed ‘Spider’, took new arrivals under his wing. Decades later, those who worked under him fondly remembered the profound influence he had on budding careers.

Stable foreman Terry Catip gave Moody a connection to Queensland. Hailing from Warwick, 130 kilometres south-west of Brisbane, he was responsible for enacting Smith’s instructions. Catip would later take the skills he mastered at Tulloch Lodge back to Warwick to train for decades in his own right.

Moody’s experience proved formative for both method and understanding and also shaped his competitive instincts. ‘I felt such fierce loyalty to T.J. Smith that I’d fight over it. I’d have a blue with someone at the pub if they said a bad word against him. People aligned with other trainers were the opposition and you treated them as such. You’d walk past someone who strapped a horse for Brian Mayfield-Smith, who in that year had just beaten T.J. for the premiership, and you’d nearly spit at them.’

Brett Cavanough took a sabbatical from horse racing to become a champion shearer but when he found his way back, he graduated to the title of leading country trainer in New South Wales. To this day he breaks in nearly every horse that passes through the gates of Moody Racing and credits both his and Moody’s success to the learnings of Tulloch Lodge. ‘We’re all educated in the mould of T.J. The systems Pete and I use when we’re breaking in and training, it all stems from there.’

To expand his education, Moody enlisted for a stint at Lindsay Park, the centrepiece of Colin Hayes’ empire. He was another who had risen from nothing. His story began with a steeplechaser named Surefoot. Hayes purchased the nag for £9 and rode him in Oakbank’s famed Great Eastern Steeplechase. He bet his honeymoon money each way at odds of 60/1 and when Surefoot ran third, used the profits to stake his training career.

The gentleman South Australian revolutionised training in Australia when he abandoned the bustle of a metropolitan stable to establish a private complex in the Barossa Valley. Sceptics regarded such a move with suspicion. Believing it to be folly, prominent clients removed talented horses from Hayes upon commencement in 1970. From that 800-hectare property C.S. Hayes forged his Hall of Fame career that stretched to 5333 winners.

Against the tranquil surrounds of Lindsay Park, Moody saw that Hayes ran a military-style operation without the need to compete for time and space with rival trainers or the restrictions imposed at training centres based at city racetracks. And like Smith had been, Hayes was also training the next generation, grooming son David to inherit the earth.

Moody rounded out his apprenticeship back at Randwick under Bart Cummings. The world had never known a better trainer of stayers. The Australian turf had a triumvirate of iconic horsemen. The canny teenager put himself as close as possible to each of them in turn. David Power could not help but admire the pluck and commitment of the stablehand he had grown to like. ‘He wanted to learn. That’s why he went with the best.’

Moody fell victim to his youth only once. At the age of eighteen, he decided he knew it all. He headed back to Charleville intent on training from home. He divided his attention between playing front row for the rugby league team, chasing girls and preparing horses. ‘I thought I was a genius. But soon I was eating paint off the walls. I realised I couldn’t make a living in the bush and if I wanted to be a horse trainer I had to go back to the seaboard.’

Randwick had a hold on him. On the first day of December 1988, Moody returned to begin a decade-long partnership with trainer Bill Mitchell, first as foreman in Sydney, then as assistant trainer in Brisbane.

Mitchell was a child of the racing fraternity, the third son of Major James Mitchell. The patriarch had purchased Yarraman Park Stud from former jockey George Moore in the late ’60s when the legendary figure set off to train in France, a venture that later came to full fruition with a decade of dominance in Hong Kong. From that property in the Hunter Valley of New South Wales, Major Mitchell ran horses and raised his family in the ways of racing. When he emerged in the late ’80s as a fresh, young face on the landscape, Bill Mitchell assembled an army and immediately became a major player, producing top-level performers that ranged from the warhorse Stylish Century to the abundantly gifted Dignity Dancer.

Moody’s timing was immaculate and his influence tangible. Mitchell recognised from the outset a young man with a firm grasp of training. The rough edges just needed to be smoothed. The relationship between trainer and foreman is one of implicit trust and understanding. For Moody it was not so much learning what to do but what not to do with horses and clients alike. Mitchell nurtured the raw materials and the result was a most rewarding relationship. ‘He hasn’t changed much really, and I think that people appreciate that he calls a spade a shovel.’

Moody craved a return to his home state but was not quite ready to branch out alone. Mitchell identified the opportunity to assist him and strengthen his operation in the process. A Brisbane stable was established under Moody’s command. There he glimpsed and guided greatness for the first time. By pure chance.

Breeder Rod Ashdown went to see a trainer about a chestnut colt by Nediym. It had already been a litany of woe. Emanating from his Glengarry Stud, the yearling was a commodity of much promise. He was sent to Queensland’s premier yearling sale, the 1996 Magic Millions, with a hefty reserve price attached. But his prospects were sabotaged when the horse became cast in his box and took an ugly chunk out of his leg. Ashdown pragmatically removed the reserve and watched under a pall of disappointment as the colt was knocked down in the auction ring for a measly $20,000. The new owner ordered a further vet check in the immediate aftermath and, unsatisfied with the findings, returned the colt to its breeder.

Ashdown had little alternative but to race the horse himself. He was left to door-knock for a trainer. His intended inquiry went unanswered. On the return trip, he drove past Bill Mitchell’s place and spied Moody mowing the lawns in forty-degree heat. He stopped and the pair chatted. At the end of the conversation, General Nediym was part of Moody’s life.

It proved to be his break-out assignment. Dating back to his first job with Frank Cavanough, Moody was obliged to follow the instructions of established trainers. While he formed his own opinions and expressed them without reserve, he was bound by his employers to operate within someone else’s system. In Mitchell’s Brisbane stable, Moody was autonomous. Day to day, his task was to shape General Nediym. Both their reputations would be moulded by the outcome.

In sixteen starts, the General posted twelve wins. His domination of the Magic Millions Classic, one of the most prestigious two-year-old races on the calendar, remains the most scintillating win in that Gold Coast event. General Nediym was blessed with frightening speed confirmed when, as a three-year-old, he defeated the older horses down the Flemington straight course to claim both the Lightning Stakes and Newmarket Handicap, the mark of sprinting grandeur. Equal in importance to the results, was the kudos they gave Moody. It put him in the right circles with breeders and influential owners. These were the relationships he needed to help underpin his desire to do all this in his own right.

Moody was learning the ways of training. He blended what was innate with what he had observed and put it into service. Like all the great trainers, he focused on deciphering the ways of the horse. ‘Probably the art of being a good racehorse trainer is trying to read their minds. You hear this adage horse whisperer and it’s probably not that far from the truth. You’ve got to read the individual and try to get some sort of feel for what they’re telling you. Knowing where you can take them, how far you can push them, then trying to work within those boundaries and exploiting their good points. The similarities between people and horses, I find, are great. They’re not a dumb animal, they’re a smart animal and they create and develop a lot of similar habits to humans.’

Ten years to the day after he set up with Mitchell, having drawn all he could from racing’s pool of wisdom and experience, P.G. Moody steeled himself and struck out alone.

Peter Moody and Luke Nolen found each other by accident. Sharing a relaxed rural Queensland disposition, they proved the perfect combination for temperament and complementary talents.

Newspix / Nicole Garmston

2

Moody Racing

The great trainers come to be defined by their champions. The horses every trainer is searching for. The names that resonate beyond premierships and statistics. The banner act to advertise the business and the stable. A champion tests a trainer’s acumen and verifies whether they can handle the pressure at the highest level of racing. While waiting for such an opportunity to present itself, a trainer first has to cajole the modest and the sluggish to achieve beyond their station.

Peter Moody began the quest in the last month of 1998. It was a move both natural and bold. Those who had grown to know him guessed he would succeed. The man himself did not lack for confidence but, as with any start-up venture, he did lack for stock. Reassurance came early, in the form of Ebony Way.

The two-year-old son of American sire River of Life was given a tune-up trial in the outer Brisbane suburb of Deagon six days ahead of his racetrack debut. In the first race on the 28 December Eagle Farm program, Ebony Way met with some late specking in the betting ring but remained an $11 outsider in the field of seven. Under accomplished jockey Jimmy Byrne, the gelding was immediately prominent in the run. By the 400-metre mark, Ebony Way had taken the lead and was travelling strongly. He was unchallenged in the run to the post, commandingly protecting a two-length margin. Moody Racing had its first winner.

So impressed was Moody that he took Ebony Way to the Gold Coast for the Magic Millions Classic on the second Saturday of January. Three years after claiming the spoils in the million-dollar race with General Nediym for Bill Mitchell, Moody was back for himself. Ebony Way was far from disgraced, finishing midfield behind future star Testa Rossa. The gelding won once more at Eagle Farm as a two-year-old before his career was curtailed by injury after just five starts. It might have been a brief run for Ebony Way but it was significant for Moody in the surge to get things moving from scratch, and he had shown he would never shy from putting his horses in the best company.

While it was his name in the race book, his operation was a partnership from the outset. Moody’s wife, Sarah, shared the same rural and equine sensibility as her husband, having grown up in country New Zealand with a mother devoted to horses. Sarah had dabbled in various aspects of racing. She had been a jumps jockey and as a teenager represented New Zealand in a world series. She had broken in ponies in France and England for tycoon Kerry Packer. Her husband knew from the start she was a keeper. ‘She’s a bloody good horsewoman. Better than I could ever be.’

He had met Sarah Belcham at Randwick and brought her back to Brisbane, where they married in 1994 in the mounting enclosure of Eagle Farm Racecourse. In the formative years of Moody Racing, Sarah rode trackwork and Peter backed her judgment. Punting on the right stable horses helped the couple to purchase their first house. ‘Best track rider I ever had. Then I got her pregnant.’

Cara was the first born, followed soon after by twins Breann and Celine. Moody was now a young father as well as an aspiring horse trainer. The family relied on his capacity to turn fifty horses of varying levels of ability into a flourishing, financially secure stable. He called in his mum to help. Having run the Commonwealth Employment Service office in Charleville, Jan stepped in to handle the business while Sarah raised the girls and Peter trained the horses. ‘Those early days were the days that really told. You’d come home and you weren’t sure which cheques you could sign or what bills you could pay. I certainly couldn’t have got there on my own. But good luck is made by hard work. We were fortunate enough to find some of the right clients and the right horses.’

Within two years, Moody had the Brisbane arm of the operation balanced and it was an ambitious eye towards Melbourne that set his endeavour soaring. At thirty-two, Moody had access to eight boxes in a corner across the road and down an alleyway from Caulfield Racecourse. He knew first impressions in racing’s most competitive hub would be long-lasting, so he handpicked the horses he brought south and studied carefully the assignments he prescribed them. Within seven months he had trained more than a dozen winners from that satellite stable.

Among them was a colt by first-season sire Carnegie, a modest $130,000 purchase from the Karaka sale in New Zealand. Wealthy businessman Ron Wanless sent most of his high-price purchases to Gerald Ryan, Brisbane’s premier trainer. The crumbs, as it were, ended up with blokes like Moody. They were speculative bets by Wanless to test horses and humans alike.

At Karaka, Moody had been the under bidder to Wanless on a Straight Strike filly that raced as More Diamonds. ‘I had never met Ron and I asked him if I could train her. At the end of the sales he gave me that filly to train and he also gave me his other purchase.’ More Diamonds could do little better than a Maiden win at Ipswich. The Carnegie colt revealed himself as a speck of gold the first time he trialled at Eagle Farm. Against the expectations of his breeding, the colt won over a half mile. Cheekily his trainer rang the owner and declared: ‘We’ll win a Derby with this horse.’

Amalfi was a handsome enough brown colt, but in April 2001 he drew little attention as a 20/1 shot on debut over 1200 metres at Eagle Farm. In what was to become a signature of the Moody method, he won straight off. The plan was set for an assault on the oldest classic on the racing calendar: the Victoria Derby.

Predating the Melbourne Cup, the Derby had a lineage that told the story of Australian racing. Phar Lap was adjudged the greatest winner of the race on an honour roll shared by Poseidon, Comic Court, Tulloch, Tobin Bronze, Red Anchor and Dulcify. In the accumulation of a staggering thirty-five Derbies nationwide, T.J. Smith had won the Victoria Derby five times. His daughter, Gai Waterhouse, had announced her arrival as a succeeding force when Nothin’ Leica Dane, part owned by Tommy, emerged victorious in 1995. The enduring image of that day hangs in the Flemington Press Room: Gai and T.J. beaming and embraced, three years before his death.

To win the Derby was the fast-track to prominence. That was as true for a trainer as it was for a horse. Amalfi came to Melbourne boosted by a subsequent win at Doomben in August. He placed in a pair of quality races over unsuitably shorter distances at Moonee Valley, before he was catapulted into calculations with a resounding victory in the traditional lead-up race, the Norman Robinson Stakes, on Caulfield Cup Day. It was a win of such authority that it promoted Amalfi to near favouritism for the Derby and vaulted Moody onto the radar for racing’s biggest week.

The Melbourne Cup Carnival thrived on the story of the little guy as much as the iconic names of the turf. That was the egalitarian nature of Australian racing. Moody’s story had that sprinkling of fairy dust. The trainer from the middle of Woop Woop trying to upstage the establishment. If this were to be Peter Moody’s entrée to racing’s big show, it would be some entrance.

Amalfi was pitted against the nobly bred Ustinov, son of the 1991 Melbourne Cup-winning mare Let’s Elope. Just as his dam had been, Ustinov was trained by Bart Cummings. Moody knew first hand what a combination this was. Then there was the aristocratic Sydneysider Viscount, owned by the billionaire Ingham brothers and prepared by their trainer John Hawkes. Viscount had beaten Amalfi previously at Moonee Valley. Then, as a three-year-old in the championship weight-for-age race the Cox Plate, Viscount had been sandwiched between star gallopers Northerly and Sunline in a tight and controversial finish that had plenty