KEY POINTS:
Never underestimate horse racing's ability to reach the depths of people's emotions.
It's natural that winning a race would make people emotional, but perhaps not the likes of former successful bronc rider Evan Rayner. The 65-year-old was as close to tears as he probably ever gets after veteran Van Winkle tore off Saturday's $50,000 Dunstan Feeds Waikato Hurdles at Te Rapa.
Rayner was one of the world's hard men of the rodeo industry through the 1960s. He recalls lying in the sun at an outback rodeo in central Queensland in 1961 with less than £1 to his name.
"I was wondering what the hell I was going to do with myself, but I was determined I wasn't going to work on a sheep station.
"Then suddenly my name came out of the hat to ride what they used to call the 'horse of the day'.
"It was £50 if you could stay on it and that was a hell of a lot of money in those days. His name was Sugar, he was a palomino and he'd never been successfully ridden."
Rayner stayed on Sugar for the allotted time. His pocket was suddenly full of money and his rodeo riding career was fully launched.
"He was only ever ridden three times in his life and I was the first."
Rayner won the World Series of saddle bronc riding when it was held in Australia and then spent 18 months competing in the United States and for two years rode at the Calgary rodeo.
Remarkably, a shoulder which would continuously dislocate, and a broken toe, were his only real injuries through a decade of competing in one of the world's most dangerous sports.
Perhaps part of the reason was that Rayner mainly kept away from bull riding.
"I can recall riding a bull in Victoria one day and I couldn't use my arm to ease off its back to the side because it had just dislocated.
"It got the better of me and gave this one enormous buck.
"It fired me so high I landed in the commentator's box."
Evan Rayner has trained a lot of winners and many good jumpers, but few victories mean more than Van Winkle's on Saturday.
Part of the emotion came from the fact that one of the veteran's owners is Dr Earle Glenn.
"He was the first person I trained a horse for way back at the start.
"I was breaking horses in when I decided to take out a trainer's licence.
"I got this letter from Dr Glenn, who I didn't know, asking me if I'd train a horse for him.
"Remarkable - who the hell would be writing to you to ask if you could train a horse for them."
Van Winkle is rising 11 and has been racing for so long two of his original owners, Elizabeth Deans and Bill Harris, have died.
Rayner's daughter and training partner, JJ Rayner, was equally emotional as she led Van Winkle and 30-year-old Jamie Gillies back to the weigh-in.
"To have an old bloke win a race like this really touches you," said Evan Rayner.
Rayner said yesterday that Van Winkle had come through the race as well as he could have hoped for.
"I couldn't quite get him right last year so I had him pre-trained a bit earlier this time around and he's racing a lot better."
The Taumarunui Cup, a race Van Winkle has contested five times, is a possible target this winter.
"He's actually been up here for it six times - one year the meeting was abandoned. He likes it here at Te Rapa." Rayner said the Foxton Cup would be Van Winkle's lead-up to the Awapuni Hurdles.
It was the biggest career win for Gillies, who won on the horse on the flat at Rotorua the previous week.
Van Winkle has ruined some of his jumping chances by racing fiercely, but this time Gillies had the veteran travelling sweetly on the speed.
"I said to the team last week that I'd worked him out - when he starts racing a bit keen I just throw the reins at him and he comes back to me."
Danny Crozier felt that the runner-up, Dan Moran, found the race a touch sharp and said he would be better over the longer distances.
Well-fancied Grani fell at the second last when out of contention.
* Paul Nelson said yesterday he can find nothing amiss with second favourite Just Not Cricket who struggled after landing awkwardly at the hurdle with a round to travel. The horse seemed reluctant to jump fluently afterwards, but still ended up fifth.
"He seems okay. He's not creeping around the paddock, which he would be if he'd done some structural damage," said Nelson.
