Richmond premiership teammates Jayden Short, Tom Lynch and the retired Jack Riewoldt were at Caulfield Racecourse at the crack of dawn on Tuesday.
They weren’t running laps.
With their phones capturing the action, they watched their horse, the five-year-old gelding Soulcombe, do his main trackwork ahead of Saturday’s Caulfield Cup.
“It was grouse. I was glad I went. It was pretty early. I asked Jack why they do it so early,” Short said.
The question, albeit one that’s not easily answered, reveals both Short’s enthusiasm and his willingness to admit he’s no Bart Cummings when it comes to matters of the turf.
“To be honest, I have actually got no idea about any other horse in the race apart from Soulcombe, and you can only go on what the trainer has to say, and they are pretty confident in the horse,” Short said. “They have been since it was bought.”
It’s the Richmond way; focus on what you can control and let the opposition do their thing. May the best prevail.
Soulcombe has been mixing it with the best and mostly prevailing since he arrived from England last spring and was transferred from William Haggas into Chris Waller’s care.
He announced himself as a cup horse when he came from last to first to win the Queen’s Cup on the final day of the Flemington carnival last year with Craig Williams on board and Riewoldt and the other three Tiger owners – Liam Baker, Nathan Broad and Jack Graham – in attendance.
This Saturday, Baker and Graham will be away, still holidaying in America, but Short, Lynch, Riewoldt and Broad will be in the mounting yard as Soulcombe heads out to test his staying power in the Caulfield Cup.
“It is good to be a chance, but I watch the races and have absolutely no idea who is going to win each time, so it will be good just to be able to go and have a horse running,” Short said.
Short, a two-time premiership winner and winner of the Tigers best and fairest award in 2020 when they won the flag, has been ribbing Baker and Graham for being out of town because they are the keenest racegoers among the half a dozen with a share.
The rest can’t believe their luck.
On Tuesday, under the guidance of Steven Arnold and Waller, the horse looked primed for a big run. Waller thought he would be at his best over the Caulfield Cup distance of 2400 metres and declared him on RSN as “the right horse in the right race”.
He is in good form, having won first up from a spell at Caulfield in the listed Heatherlie Stakes over 1700 metres – when none of the Tigers backed him – before finishing fourth in the Underwood Stakes and third in the Turnbull Stakes.
Drawn barrier six, Soulcombe will need to wind his way through the field to make it home first as he is a noted dawdler from the gates, but his Tigers owners showed in their flag victories in 2017, 2019 and 2020, it’s not where you are mid-race that matters but where you are when the winning post arrives.
Short accepts nothing is perfect when it comes to sport.
“That is just how he goes … [he’ll] probably do it again. The 2400 metres helps, as it gives him a bit more time to make up ground,” Short said.
There is precedence and omens too. Leon Cameron, a former player for the Tigers and Western Bulldogs, and also a past coach of the GWS Giants, part-owned Caulfield Cup winner Mummify when he saluted in 2003, and he wore the same No.15 at Richmond as Short does now at the Tigers.
A good performance at Caulfield would see the horse progress to the Melbourne Cup, a dream so strong that Baker joked at a function three weeks ago he had no doubt he would forego a third premiership if he was guaranteed a Melbourne Cup win.
Nothing is guaranteed in racing, except emotion. And Short and his Richmond teammates (as well as the large bunch of Soulcombe’s other owners that racing experts Ozzie Kheir and John O’Neill pulled together) will have theirs invested in a five-year-old gelding when the field jumps in the Caulfield Cup at 5.15pm on Saturday.
All eyes will be on the Tigers’ Soulcombe.
