BROWNIE'S BLOG: WINX THRILLS AGAIN AS THE CHAMPION FINDS A WAY TO GET THE JOB DONE

By Damian Browne | Monday, September 4, 2017

Winx continues to thrill the masses bringing a new level of excitement to proceedings in her last two victories. Riding without a bridle and false starts are also on the menu in this latest edition of Brownie's Blog, the personal blog of multiple group winning rider Damian Browne, which appears exclusively on HRO.

The manner in which Winx has claimed her last two victories has provided a riveting spectacle.

On both occasions some of her fans would have been forgiven if they started to lose a bit of faith halfway up the straight and think ... oh no, she’s going to get beaten ... but, like champions do, she finds a way to get the job done.

Saturday’s race was probably a bit reminiscent of Hay List and Black Caviar at Randwick in that exhilarating finish going back a few years. Again, that was Black Caviar getting the job done when it looked that she might be in trouble.

After Winx’s previous win I heard Hugh (Bowman) saying that he wasn’t worried turning for home. Well, he had to be a little concerned turning for home on Saturday ... but, then again, he has obviously got enormous faith in the mare and she has never let him down.

I saw Hugh pulling up without his stick so having lost that in the running somewhere could have added to the drama ... but in the end he didn’t need it.

The racing public love to see a champion.

In real terms they are pretty rare so we have really been fortunate in seeing a couple of them in a relatively short space of time.

They create interest and get people talking about racing which is great to see.

It is just a matter of sitting back and enjoying it!

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After Laura Cheshire’s heroics at Murwillumbah last week, where she safely negotiated three laps of the track without a bridle, I have been asked if I’ve ever experienced something similar in my career.

I have ... at a track called Reefton, which is a small town on New Zealand's West Coast.

It is a very tight 1000m track. I was on a hard pulling horse and the bridle went straight through its mouth and came out ... and I had to steer it around the whole track with my whip.

We were still racing and I ended up getting outside the leader. I remember turning for home thinking should I try and win the race or try to save my life.

I ended up trying to do both but there was more difficulty to come at the end of the race.

When you get to the winning post at Reefton you have to turn very sharply otherwise you end up in the mounting yard. I was fortunate because, after the line, I used my stick again to guide the horse around the corner and I was able to then let him slow down on his own accord.

Horses are intelligent animals and you have got to give them credit for that sometimes.

In Laura’s case horse and rider seemed to work well together to ensure that there was no more drama than necessary and that, thankfully, they both came back safely.

She is a kiwi though, so that is probably where the horsemanship came in.

All credit to her for not panicking and to the horse as well. As I say they are very intelligent animals.

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There has been a fair amount of comment about the false start siren going off briefly in error in the Murwillumbah Cup and what happened after that with the majority of the horses completing to course.

After a fair delay, the result of the race became official and the three runners compromised were declared non-runners.

I wasn’t there ... but I know that is an awkward situation for a rider to be in.

When something happens at the start everybody looks at everybody else as to what they should do.

Is it a false start? You look for the lights or the siren as it may be... different countries have different ways of signalling a false start ... but an element of uncertainty can remain.

I have been in a couple of races like that where we have continued on. One was declared a no-race ... at Trentham. I remember that well because I actually won the ‘race’ so that as disappointing.

The exception to those riders looking around for an answer when something happens at the start might be the riders who jump in the first three or four horses. Quite often those riders might not know that something has happened behind them, whatever it might be.

Also, it is very hard for the young jockeys ... new apprentices, inexperienced jockeys and the like ... to be able to take in everything that is going on around them when they are very focussed on their race. When you are in the early stage of your career everything happens a lot faster.

You simply can’t jump out every time and go the first fifty metres trying to work out if it is a race or not before you start pushing ahead. You have to run your race from the very first stride and ‘play to the whistle’ as footballers say.

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You have to understand as well that being fully focussed on what are doing can take certain things that might be obvious to others out of the equation ... like hearing the siren.

For example, in my career, I have very seldom heard the crowd. They can get pretty loud ... as we all know ... but I have seldom heard them because I am so fully focussed on the task at hand.

But even if you do hear something, you can still be confused. For example, at the Sunshine Coast we start next to a freeway. We could jump and a fire engine could go past on the freeway with sirens blaring.

How do we interpret that sound in those circumstances if we can’t see where it is coming from? What do we do?

The easiest thing when there is any uncertainty is to carry on and let the stewards work it out from there.

It is a difficult one for them because there are people who will feel aggrieved whatever their final ruling.

I guess the over-riding point I am making is every circumstance is different and that’s where the stewards have got to do their job, take all of the circumstances into account, and make a decision ... as they did at Murwillumbah.

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