By MIKE DILLON
Was it exceptional emerging talent or one of the lesser fields we have seen that allowed novice jumper Gold Story to come from nowhere to take Saturday's $50,000 Greath Northern Hurdles?
Probably a mixture of both.
This was not your average novice.
It usually takes two seasons of jumping to get a horse tough enough to see out the TV Guide distance, much less win it and this was a horse who had faced the starter only twice over jumps and had not earned a dollar from either.
But Ellerslie's dual Queen's Birthday jumping treats are all about toughness and Ken Browne knew Gold Story had the slog in him necessary to get some of the money: even if he had originally been put him in the race to make up the numbers and had more specifically set him for the maiden steeplechase today.
"This horse has always been tough," said a delighted Browne after his Gold Story-Smart Hunter quinella result.
"I won an amateur riders' race on him last winter, at Foxton I think, and I had to really get at him with the whip.
"They took me in to charge me with excessive whip use and I told them: "This horse needs it, he won't perform if you don't drive him. Are you saying I should have pulled him up?
"I really took on the stipes over it."
One of the first to approach Browne after the race was prominent flat rider Jim Collett.
"You owe me a dollar," Collett told Browne.
To get the legs into Gold Story for such a gruelling race, Browne rode the horse himself under 67kg on the flat at Paeroa last Sunday. With 800m to run he found himself locked away with Collett on his outside.
"I was desperate to get him out and running to make him work with this race in mind so I had no option but to push Jim out of the way.
"That's what a lot of people don't understand - when you ride a jumper on the flat you have to ride them like a jumper, get them out and grinding."
The grind got Gold Story home on Saturday, although stablemate Smart Hunter would have beaten him if he hadn't been left three wide in running and or punched the last hurdle hard with his hind legs.
It would not have been right if an almost equally inexperienced rider had not been aboard and 26-year-old Irishman Finbar Leahy was perfect for the role.
He had ridden 95 winners in Britain, but only one previously in New Zealand.
Leahy had no intention of riding over fences when he arrived here with his Cambridge girlfriend Tammy Goodman earlier this year as part of a one-year world tour and Ken Browne had not heard of him until he arrived on his doorstep with a handshake one day.
"I'd obviously heard of the great Ken Browne when in England," said a modest Leahy after the race.
Leahy had not ridden in a race in a year when Browne legged him on his first jumping mount and provided some tuition to adapt to a totally different style after watching the first few performances.
"I told Finbar to forget about the English style of setting a horse for each fence and guiding them over it and to have confidence in the horse and let it rip at the fences."
Leahy's sound horsemanship quickly adapted.
"What a great steeplechaser this horse will make," said Leahy.
"I'd love to ride him in Monday's big steeplechase [Mercedes Great Northern] in a couple of years time."
As nice as that thought was, Leahy was content to bask in his greatest moment in racing.
"I've won a few good races at home, but this is easily the most prestigious. I have ridden Aintree, but not in the Grand National. I had a Grand National mount a couple of years ago, but he was withdrawn."
Even if it was not the greatest field we've seen, it was one of the most exciting races with the first three home clearing the last locked together.
Almost forgotten in the drama was the effort of third-placed Sadr, relatively inexperienced with only eight previous jumping starts.
Sadr did remarkably well to stick on gamely after pulling quite hard early. He settled better when Nathan Hanley managed to lock him away on the rails, but ran into the bridle again at the halfway mark, making his third a big pointer for next year.
Racing: Hard novice comes out of nowhere for victory
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