Maddie Raymond and 2015 Melbourne Cup winner Prince of Penzance share a magical connection. The Warrnambool strapper attends to the gelding's every need. RACHAEL HOULIHAN finds out more.
FOR 45 minutes every morning Maddie Raymond takes some time to relax.
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She’s not meditating with a cup of hot tea or performing yoga moves, she’s aboard a racehorse, galloping flat out along one of Warrnambool’s beaches.
The bay gelding she sits astride isn’t just any horse. It’s the 2015 Melbourne Cup winner Prince of Penzance, who is fittingly known around the stable as ‘Success’.
Maddie works as a foreman under Jarrod McLean for Darren Weir at his Warrnambool-based stables.
“I take him off on my own. When I’m on him, I just want to be alone,” she said.
“I don’t want anyone talking to me or anyone distracting me.
“It’s the time I find peace. I don’t have to think about anything and life just slows down for me.
“I trust that horse with my life. There’s nowhere I wouldn’t go or do with him. There’s not many horses you can find like that, that you have that bond with. When we are down at the beach in the mornings I don’t have to lead him, he will just follow me around.”
Success shot trainer Weir and jockey Michelle Payne into the international eye after winning the $6.2 million race in November, but Maddie’s road to the Melbourne Cup began when she was a youngster.
Much like other young pony-mad girls her age, Maddie had always wanted a horse.
“My parents thought I would grow out of it,” she said.
“Of course, I never did. I started riding ponies out at Rundell’s Horse Riding and mum and dad said if I was still interested when I was 13 they would buy me a horse.”
When she turned 13 Maddie’s parents, Sue and Eddie, came good on their promise, purchasing their daughter a thoroughbred mare.
Little did they know the love affair with thoroughbreds had begun.
“Her name was Skye,” Maddie recalled.
“We went to Warrnambool Pony Club and competed in eventing.”
Maddie’s first part-time job was at Rundell’s starting when she was 15.
“I fell in love with a horse out there named Classic,” she said.
“My parents wouldn’t buy her for me. They said I would appreciate it more if I could buy her myself. I worked every school holidays, every weekend and after school to pay for her. It took me two-and-a-half years. I still have her now. I evented her and showjumped her and she’s due to have her second foal at the end of the year.”
Maddie’s first taste of working in the racing industry was scoring a job with Warrnambool trainer Matthew Williams. She fed-up and mucked out stables in the afternoon and on weekends.
Since then she has garnered a great racing knowledge through working at stables across Victoria and internationally for leading trainers.
When Weir first opened his stables at Warrnambool, Maddie started working for him.
After finishing school she moved to Melbourne to work for Lindsay Park’s David Hayes. She soon moved from the city to Hayes’ stables and pre-training facilities at Euroa where she began track-riding.
She moved back to Warrnambool about four years ago, and started working again for Weir.
Last year she spent six months in Ireland working for champion trainer Willy Mullins.
Including the on-course stables, Weir has about 70 horses in Warrnambool with plans to increase that number to 100.
Maddie recalls Prince of Penzance coming to the stables in 2014 and said fellow employee Tyson Kermond began riding him.
“He used to be quite a handful,” she said.
“I really liked him then. He was pretty full on and he’s a very tough horse. He did what he wanted, and sometimes still does now.”
After Maddie returned from her overseas stint, ‘Success’ came back into work and she took over the reins, riding him at track work daily.
“I don’t let anyone else touch him or go anywhere near him or ride him,” she said.
“The only other person is Michelle (Payne), when she comes down to gallop him. A horse gets to know you and he can be quite a handful at times, so when you have a connection with a horse it will settle for you. He settles and relaxes with me. It’s a good partnership. He’s part of my life now, I absolutely love him.”
At the start of Success’ preparation last year Maddie never thought he could win the Melbourne Cup.
“Not that I didn’t think he was capable, you just don’t expect it to happen,” she explained.
“His first few runs were okay, but nothing exceptional. The further he gets in his work and the fitter he gets, the better he gets. He started improving and when he ran second in the Moonee Valley Cup, that’s when I started getting a bit excited that he might get a run in the Melbourne Cup.”
Every day Maddie checked the field for the cup, hoping Success would get into the final 24 runners.
“I was over the moon, I was so excited,” she said.
“I didn’t care if he came dead last, just to have a horse in the Melbourne Cup was incredible. I’d been to every race meeting strapping him, and Darren and Jarrod made sure I was there to strap him as well as Stevie (Payne). We were doing it together.”
She said the day of the big race was more exciting than stressful.
“There was nothing else we could do,” she said,
“In knew we had him there in the best position he could have been in. He was fit, sound and he was happy and well in himself. We couldn’t fault him heading into the cup.”
Maddie left Warrnambool about 8am on that fateful Tuesday in November, with a group of her best friends and Success in the horse float on the back.
“I stayed with him most of the day before the race,” she said.
“Success, Michelle and myself were so relaxed, which was weird for a big day. Normally he can be quite strong, and a handful, but he was so well behaved. Maybe because he was relaxed, he was ready. His mind was on the job and he knew what he was there to do.”
Sage advice came from Daniel Bowman, who strapped Signoff in the 2014 Melbourne Cup for Weir.
“He rang me a couple of days before the Cup and told me to take it all in,” Maddie said.
“He said ‘enjoy it, it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity’.”
Michelle commented to Maddie how relaxed Success was when she jumped aboard.
“When I got him out onto the course I gave him a big pat and told him ‘good luck’,” Maddie said.
“I didn’t care if he ran 10 lengths last. To be out on that track, on that day, in that race was massive.”
Maddie said Stevie pulled off the red racing strapper’s bib and offered it to her to keep.
“I said to him ‘no Stevie, what if he wins? You better put it back on’,” she said.
As the nation stopped to watch the race, Maddie picked out a prime position in the mounting yard.
“I don’t think I breathed through the race,” she said.
“I knew Michelle’s instructions were to follow two of the race favourites and to sit about fifth back. She was in the exact position she was meant to be. I knew he was running well. He was relaxed and calm. We’d hoped for top 10 and I thought he would make that easily. Then she went for a run and she didn’t get it straight away, then all this space opened up for her. As soon as it opened up Success pinned his ears back and he was fighting to win. She got low and he just turned it on. He fought for it. I knew he had the energy to run out the last couple of hundred.”
As Success galloped past the winning past Maddie froze.
“Everyone was jumping on me and I was just trembling,” she said.
“My best friend Sarah Woodhouse wasn’t allowed in the mounting yard, but she came barging through the stewards up to me. She told me she was so proud of me. She knew how much time and effort I had put into the horse.”
Making her way back to the winner’s stall, Maddie led Success with Stevie.
“All I could think about was Success and making sure he was okay,” she said.
It wasn’t long after the race that Maddie loaded Success back on the float and drove him back to Warrnambool.
“He needed to be in his own box and relax,” she said.
That night Maddie partied in Ballarat with the Weir crew and the next day things returned to normal.
“I took Success to the sand dunes for a ride,” Maddie said.
“It was the first time he had nearly (tipped) me off. It felt like he could do it again. That was a bit surreal, sitting on a Melbourne Cup winner.”
The media wanted McLean to ride him for a photoshoot along the dunes, but he said no, Maddie was to ride him.
“My wedding day is going to be a disappointment,” she laughed.
“I will never get that feeling ever again.”
Success is back in work, with a run planned for May 21 in Adelaide.
He has an automatic acceptance into this year’s Melbourne Cup, and, just quietly, Maddie says he can do it again.