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Sports correspondent & historian with |
Staying with last week’s subject of Eastern Bay of Plenty Cricket all-rounder, Leicester Spring, it is worth recalling the absolute champion racehorse in Rising Fast that he raced.
Within 12 months of his move to Whakatāne, Spring founded the Whakatane Beacon newspaper. With the Beacon successfully established in the local community, Spring attended the Trentham yearling sales, in 1950, and purchased a horse for a bargain 325 guineas, subsequently named Rising Fast.
Rising Fast is entitled to be ranked alongside Australian racehorse legends in Phar Lap, Tulloch, Black Caviar and Winx.
While Rising Fast won 24 races, it was the spring of 1954 that the Whakatāne-owned gelding put together a sequence of top-level victories, which are highly unlikely to ever be equalled.
Last week, we made reference to the horse winning the Spring Grand Slam of the Caulfield Cup, Cox Plate and the Melbourne Cup - but there was so much more.
Trained for his 1954 Australian campaign by Kiwi horse conditioner Ivan Tucker, Rising Fast kicked off his record-breaking run in the Turnbull Stakes over 12 furlongs.
Next was the Caulfield Stakes (9 furlongs) before beating Electronics and Advocate in the Caulfield Cup (12 furlongs).
Many consider the Caulfield and Melbourne Cups to be the blue-ribbon events of Australian racing, however, racing agree generally agree that the Cox Plate is the contest that establishes genuine champions.
Success in the 10 furlong WFA Cox Plate saw the five-year-old horse successfully line up in the McKinnon Stakes (10 furlong), just three days before, his assignment on the first Tuesday in November at Flemington racecourse.
Rising Fast carried a then record 9 stone 5 pounds (59.4kg), which has only been exceeded by Rain Lover, who carried 9 stone 7 pounds, in his second Melbourne Cup win in 1969.
The (Melbourne) morning bulletin headlines screamed “Rising Fast Wins Cup In Dashing Finish”.
The newspaper report said “The hot favourite, Rising Fast, and jockey Jack Purtell, were associated in a magnificent display to win the Melbourne Cup at Flemington yesterday”.
“Rising Fast is the fourth horse to have won the Caulfield and Melbourne Cup double in the same year. He was going away from place getters Hellion and outsider Gay Helles to win by a length and a quarter. Trainer Ivan Tucker turned Rising Fast out in perfect condition”.
Rising Fast rounded out his 1954 Spring campaign in winning the CB Fisher Plate over 10 furlongs at Flemington racecourse, to give him seven straight victories.
The champion went on the following season to win the Caulfield Cup for a second time and be nosed out of another Melbourne Cup, by Toporoa.
Rising Fast won 24 races in New Zealand and Australia, banking a huge sum of £66,765.
Spring’s book Racing with Rising Fast showed the value of the horse’s stake money. “This huge amount of money enabled me to purchase a sheep and cattle farm near Te Awamutu, to build a home in Whakatāne and provide capital for the further development of the Whakatane Beacon”.
Rising Fast enjoyed a long retirement on his owner’s farm, passing away at 29 in 1978.