A CALLOW V CALLOW HEADLINE ACT AT THE GOLD COAST

By Graham Potter | Monday, July 17, 2023

It would have been a special moment in any circumstance, but when that moment possibly translates into a world’s first, well that moves the narrative along to the ‘unique’ level.

Putting that aside for the moment, the sight of multiple Group 1 winning jockey Noel Callow raising the arm of his daughter Stacey as they came back to scale together, after she had beaten her father in a one-two result which saw them quinella the fifth race at the Gold Coast last Saturday, was a great advertisement for racing.

Different generations ... living it ... loving it!

And just for good measure, the Callows rode the quinella again two races later, this time with Noel just edging out Stacey in the closest of finishes. A father daughter quinella ... twice ... on the same day at a professional race meeting, surely has to be one for the record books!

A 2kg provincial claiming apprentice, Stacey Callow relocated to the Gold Coast from South Australia in mid-March joining the stable of Les Kelly on loan, since which time she has transferred to trainer Marcus Wilson for whom she brought home her winner Baronessa, a $9 chance, on Saturday.

That win, Stacey Callow’s fourth winner in the Sunshine State, came by a clearcut 2.5 length margin as she upstaged Noel’s mount, the $1.90 favourite Get What You Give in emphatic fashion, in the end leaving the main fancy one only racing for second place.

That’s when Noel’s unabashed pride in what his daughter is doing came out in spontaneous fashion. As the two riders moved alongside each other on their return to scale, Noel reached out for his daughter’s right hand and raised it to the sky as they celebrated her win together, their smiles highlighting the real pleasure of the moment.
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There was a second story within the Callow story that played out on the day ... and that is related to the Gold Coast Jockey’s Premiership in which Noel Callow, the defending Premiership title holder, entered the day one win behind Bailey Wheeler in what has come down to a straight two-way fight between the master and the apprentice.

That defeat on the short-priced favourite Get What You Give meant that Callow had to wait just that little bit longer to change the situation on the Premiership scoreboard ... but the wait was not that long, because Callow duly saluted in the very next race aboard the Les Kelly trained Damiani, another favourite, to level up with Wheeler at twenty-nine wins apiece.

And Damiani is also very much a story in her own right.

There is arguably no better evidence supporting the view that, if a horse likes a Polytrack surface, chances are it will love a Polytrack surface ... than that of Damiani.

Les Kelly was the fourth training setup to take Damiani under its care with the daughter of Prince Of Dubai arriving in the Kelly yard as a twenty-race Maiden.

Enter Kelly and the Poly Track and, just six runs later, Damiani is now a four- time winner with the other two runs in the Kelly sequence of starts bringing two runner-up finishes ... with all of these results coming at the Gold Coast on the Poly Track surface.

A real ‘horses for courses’ story.
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Just one race later, Callow had the Premiership lead after a race which also featured the second act of the Callow v Callow headline show.

Until the very last stride it looked like Stacey Callow was once again going to deny her father victory after stealing a lead early in home straight aboard Milliffe ($5) and staying on strongly to the line, but Noel on the Lindsay Hatch trained Windjana (the $3.90 favourite) kept coming, snaring Milliffe right on the line to deny the Marcus Wilson/Stacey Callow team a double by the narrowest of margins.

It was that close that, for a moment, the thought was there of the possibility of a Callow dead-heat ... how good would that have been ... but the judge found a margin for Windjana ... which, ultimately, could prove to be a very important photo-finish result in the chase for the Jockey’s Premiership.
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The person who had the closest view of that finish other than the Callow’s was Bailey Wheeler, who with all of the hype going on with the Callows, had become something of the forgotten man of this particular meeting.

After coming from the tail of the field and ducking back towards the inside with a spirited finishing effort aboard Best Song, there was a moment when it looked like Wheeler might race right past the duelling Callows, but, in the end, he and Best Song had to settle for a close-up third placing behind Windjana.

While Wheeler hadn’t done enough to preserve the Premiership lead he held going into the day ... he had given it his all.

Two third placings from a book of rides on horses priced at $13, $26, $15, $3.50EF, $6.50, $7, $12 and $8.50, while no cigar, was a fair return, albeit without a much-needed winner.

Noel Callow’s rides on the day were on horses priced at $1.40F, $6.50, $1,80F, $2.60F, $3.90F and $8.

While the Jockey’s Premiership title race is still open, a comparison of those prices between these two riders perhaps highlights the difficulty now facing Wheeler for, if that trend of who rides the better fancies continues over final two weeks of the season, chances are Callow will be very hard to run down.

Either way, it has been a great effort from both Callow and Wheeler which has brought them to the top of the leaderboard in a season of which they can be proud.

As for Stacey Callow and her great family day out, she would have left the track with invigorated confidence and giving her dad an extra spring in his step as Noel has stated on more than one occasion that he gets more enjoyment out of watching Stacey ride than anything he has done ... which is saying something ... and, on this day, Stacey Callow’s biggest supporter could not have had a more close-up view of her doing just that, or have been involved in more exhilarating circumstances.

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