BIRDSVILLE BOUND, CUP TARGETED. INSIGHT INTO WHAT THE TRIP INVOLVES FROM A STABLE WHO SHOULD KNOW

By Graham Potter | Wednesday, August 30, 2023

Birdsville bound and a chance to mix with five thousand or so of your new best friends at the country’s greatest outback horse racing party ... well, that’s a well-worn path for Gary and Kylie Geran, so much so that Kylie can’t tell you exactly how many times they have made the trip.

“Ah geez, I really don’t know how many times exactly,” said Kylie, speaking shortly after her and Gary’s arrival at Birdsville for the 2023 edition of the iconic event.

“We’ve been coming to Birdsville since about 1998. Corey was about two years old when we first came out here ... and, yeah, as an event nothing much has changed.

The Geran team has three horses involved over the two-day meeting this weekend but, even with all of their understanding of the Birdsville experience, Kylie admits that the decision-making process in deciding which of the stable runners to bring to Birdsville remains a difficult call.

“It’s really very hard trying to pick the right horse because of the possible effects of the travel might have on the horse and, at the time you are making that decision, you also don’t know what the racing conditions will be like on the day,” explained Kylie.

“You would think that it would be best to take the toughest of horses, but it doesn’t always turn out that way. Sometime the ‘weaker’ one handles it and the tough one doesn’t handle it ... it’s an unknown factor with any horse as to how they handle the trip and all of the extremes it takes to get here.

“And every year we’ve been here it seems like the conditions have been different. You don’t ever get exactly the same weather. You don’t even get the same the countryside ... the look of the countryside ... yeah, it’s always different.

“Last year we were here in the rain and mud. We’ve been in dust storms ... so we’ve pretty much seen it all ... but this year it has been very nice so far. The weather is predicted to be quite mild for this time of the year. There is no wind.

“We are pretty close to the desert, so you have your warm days and cool nights.”
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And the trip up to Birdsville from Geran’s home base at Toowoomba ... close to 1500 travelling with three horses ... that’s a pretty big undertaking in itself before you can even think about getting into race mode!

“We leave home and we go as far as Charleville, which probably takes about six-and-a-half hours,” said Kylie, giving us some insight into the Geran’s road-trip strategy.

“We have a couple of days there for the horses to get over it. We then head to off to Windorah (another five-hour trip) and we spend the night there.

"We normally would race in Betoota (they raced on the weekend before the Birdsville meeting), but we skipped Betoota this year. It’s normally Betoota and then everyone moves on to Birdsville and then Bedourie ... and we are going to go on to Bedourie after Birdsville.” (That, in relative terms is just a two hour hop away).

“Our younger son is on a station there, so we are going up there and will do that one. We sort of like to support one of the smaller clubs as well.

“It’s hard for us to get away for any length of time having so many horses in work in Toowoomba, but you sometimes you just have to do it.”
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Settled in at Birdsville now, getting ready for action, how are the three Geran horses faring?

“All of the horses we have brought this time have settled in very nicely,” said Kylie. “it ‘s been pretty good. They are all eating and drinking well which is a bonus in terms of the way it allows them to get over the travelling ... which is like a gallop anyway.

“We were sitting around the fire last night and they were all lying down having a good sleep.

‘It’s a funny thing, but they say you should keep your horses as close to nature as possible and when these horses get out here you can actually see why. They just settle in so well.

‘We’ve got Torbreck in the Cup. He’s a pretty honest horse. He won the Nanango Cup the other day. He is fairly seasoned. he is a good traveller and a pretty tough sort of customer around these country tracks.

“Then we have Sammy. He was double entered, but he’s drawn the one alley in the Open Handicap on the Friday, so he’ll probably run in that. We’ll opt to go that way with him.

“He’s pretty seasoned too, so I’m sort of expecting both of them to race well.

“We’ve also brought Power Sister. We haven’t had her long, so we don’t really know a lot about her. She’ll be a first starter for us out here.” (Power Sister transferred from the Mathew Park stable to the Geran yard after her last start, fourth place finish at the Sunshine Coast in June).
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While the Geran stable is still chasing that Birdsville Cup win on the training front ... the stable jockey already has that honour under his belt.

“I had a horse run fourth in the Cup in 2017 ... Walk To The Bar. He won the Betoota Cup for me and then went on to the Birdsville Cup and ran fourth (behind Fast Fella) ... but Gary has won the Cup a couple of times on horses from other stables.

That was in 2011and 2012 when Gary Geran partnered Just A Touch and Dancefloor Prodigy, respectively, to their Cup victories.

“Gary has been a little bit heavy for this time of year. A broken foot put him out and it was a bit of a struggle through the winter with his weight,” explained Kylie. “But he is not on his own. There are plenty of heavy jockeys out here.”

For all of that, Gary is very much demand at Birdsville where he will have eight rides over the two days, most importantly on Torbreck in the cup.

Could this be the year that the Geran training /riding team combination claim the Birdsville Cup together?

It certainly would put a nice explanation mark on the story of the Geran’s long-time involvement with Birdsville racing and runner-stamp and reward all of the years of support shown by Kylie and Gary Geran for the event.

They are certainly not alone in that commitment to the Birdsville cause ... many other trainers and jockeys are members of that particular family ... but it will be a special win for whoever gets the result and, with the old rule that if you have a ticket you have a chance applying, Corey, Kylie and Gary Geran are right in it.

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