Just after 5pm on Friday leading trainer Ciaron Maher posted on social media site Facebook a photograph of a wristwatch – presumably attached to his own arm – with the hands fixed just after 5pm with the message that he was clocking off for spring.
As Sunday is 1 December, nominally the first day of summer, then he was technically correct but in reality it feels that there is never a clocking off time in racing – particularly where the spring is concerned.
Given that the Ballarat Cup is not due to be run until next Saturday 7 December and the Pakenham Cup not for a fortnight later (just four days before Christmas) then it seems that what used to be the spring straggles on, boosted by novel new race concepts like the Meteorite contested last weekend on Cranbourne Cup day and the Southside Supernova, to be run on Pakenham Cup day.
It’s a far cry from the not so old days (in reality only a couple of years back) when the spring was largely done and dusted in the middle of November with the Sandown Cup and Zipping Classic meeting, the feature of which is named after that grand old Lloyd Williams owned warrior of the turf Zipping, who won the 2400 metre Sandown race (then known as the Classic) on no less than four occasions, the last as a nine year old in 2010.
In common with so much of what has happened in the past few years – particularly during the Covid period when crowds could not attend and several facets of racing’s programming and planning was subject to review – the calendar and race slots have been shifted and moved around in a manner that has even left jockeys, owners and trainers a little confused.
So this weekend the Zipping Classic will not be run at it’s spiritual home but at the Melbourne Racing Club’s sister track, Caulfield. It is still a fascinating race and it will be the centrepiece of a strong programme containing numerous events that used to draw a line under the metropolitan part of the spring carnival when contested at Sandown in a meeting which gave the south eastern suburban track its big day in the carnival sun.
This meeting will still do that, but for many who got used to the rhythm and timing of the previous programmes it still feels a bit odd that it is taking place on the last Saturday of November.
Hitherto the metro carnival more or less ended on the second Saturday of the month, so attention could be fixed on both the Ballarat Cup, where runners who competed in distance races at Flemington could back up a fortnight later, and the riches on offer in Perth. where the Railway Stakes, Winterbottom and Kingston Town Classic provided a great full stop for group 1 racing for the year.
The rejigging of races has meant that traditional training programmes and time honoured lead up events have either lost their lustre or been reinvented: it may all work out wonderfully well given a decade or more to bed in, but it also does provoke the question that if the previous calendar and schedule worked so well for decades, why tamper with it?
As ever, the results will be judged by the quality of the racing, the attendances, corporate and sponsorship investment and, crucially, betting turnover.
But with the new committee in charge at the MRC following the revolution that saw John “Kanga” Kangalaris become chairman committed to reversing several of their predecessors contentious investment and scheduling decisions, traditionalists will be hoping that the Zipping Classic, Sandown Guineas, Sandown Cup, Keven Heffernan Stakes and Merson Cooper Stakes, to name just a few events on Saturday’s card, will eventually go back to being staged where they used to be.
Zipping died in March 2022 at the age of 20 after a paddock accident at the Living Legends sanctuary for former champions, but it is highly likely that the son of Danehill would approve: after all, not only was he traditionalist himself in his pursuit of the Sandown feature but he also was a regular in Australia’s most traditional race of all, the Melbourne Cup, where he finished fourth three times!
The race named in his honour will, however, do him proud as it features a strong and varied field of well known stayers, several of whom have won at the highest level during their lengthy careers.
The most intriguing of these is the Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott trained Serpentine, who will carry the dark blue and white Williams colours that Zipping wore with distinction.
There have been a number of English Derby placegetters and also rans who have come to Australia and run with great success but never in living memory has there been an Epsom hero – except Serpentine.
The son of Galileo was one of four Aidan O’Brien trained runners in the Covid Derby of 2020 but at 25-1 was hardly fancied. That didn’t stop him bolting home under an inspired front running ride by Emmet McNamara who streaked well clear and simply didn’t stop, running out an easy winner in front of the empty stands to pull off a surprise victory.
Serpentine, who suffered the very unusual fate for a Derby winner of being gelded, has never enjoyed a moment of equal success since, but if he can rediscover that sort of form and land the Caulfield spoils it will certainly not be greeted by silence and an empty grandstand.
