THE SUNSHINE COAST NEWSPAPER COLUMN: A CUP DAY FULL OF HISTORY WITH SO MANY STORIES TO TELL

By Graham Potter | Friday, June 28, 2019

Graham Potter writes a weekly column for the Sunshine Coast daily. Due to demand from those having trouble accessing the paper these columns are now also published on HRO courtesy of the Sunshine Coast daily.

The Sunshine Coast Turf Club will provide the setting for a feast of Metropolitan class racing this weekend as it hosts the final meeting of the Queensland Winter Racing Carnival which features the Caloundra Cup, the Sunshine Coast Guineas and the Glasshouse Handicap.

The Richard Laming trained Jamaican Rain won the 2018 edition of the Glasshouse under the guidance of Tegan Harrison and the team returns this year chasing back to back wins in the race – a feat last achieved by Woorim in 2009 and 2010, the difference being that Woorim was partnered in victory by two different jockeys … the late Stathi Katsidis and local hero Damian Browne.

In 2017 Sunshine Coast based trainer Darryl Hansen keep the major share of the Glasshouse prize money at home when Monsieur Gustave saw off all challenges and, if you go back to the result of the 2012 Glasshouse, you will uncover an historic result as jockey Chris Munce’s win on Belltone saw him became the first jockey to ride one hundred winners in a season in the Brisbane Metropolitan Premiership.

Now Munce, firmly established as an up and coming trainer, will be aiming for glory from a different perspective as he sends out Skate To Paris in this weekend’s Glasshouse looking to get his name in the winning trainer’s column.

Munce also won the Caloundra Cup as a jockey. He scored on Brayroan for trainer Barry Mitchell back in 2014. They were the last Queensland based combination to win the Cup which has been dominated by visiting trainers over the last four years.

For local sentiment though, you have to a long way to beat the Cup win of King Latarmiss in 2007.

Trained by multiple Sunshine Coast premiership winner Trevor Miller and ridden by Group 1 winning, local hoop jockey Ken Pope, the King Latarmiss result provided a fantastic celebration for the Sunshine Coast racing community.

And if you want any real gauge of quality of runners these feature races can attract, The Bostonian won the 2018 Sunshine Coast Guineas before going on to be the star of this year’s Winter Carnival where he landed a Group 1 double in the Doomben 10 000 and the Kingsford-Smith.

But, the Guineas story everybody revisits was the wonderful win of Winx in 2015. From there Winx would push forward and rewrite the records books on all fronts – stake earnings, number of Group 1 wins, length of winning sequence - while remaining unbeaten in a thirty-two race winning sequence over four years.

There is so much more to tell, of course, because there is just so much history, horse and human interest stories and sub plots registered in the record books under the heading of Caloundra Cup day.

It will be fascinating to see how the next chapter unfolds this weekend.

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