CUPS WEEKS
NZ Trotting Cup 1983
Phew! Back to Normality
That was the feeling in the harness world leading up to the Cup of 1983. After two dramatic wins by mares by wide margins, ending a hoodoo on the weaker sex going back to 1949, it seemed the tradition would rule in this one.
Only it wouldn’t . It turned out to be one of the most untraditional and dramatic Cups of all time.
Prior to Armalight and Bonnie’s Chance the established wisdom among the Cup experts was that mares were at a disadvantage in spring racing (seasonal problems now overcome) and Cup preparations needed searching preparations racing in August and through the spring. In most years such a battle plan had succeeded. But Armalight had only had 3 starts before her win, the first one in October. Bonnie’s Chance had had four.Both won by seven lengths.What was happening to time honoured tradition ?
1983 had its up and comers too. Derby, a budding superstar who had got to Cup class (10 wins) in a modern record of 12 starts had been racing since August; Our Mana the one time no hoper transformed in the hands of Colin De Filippi might be a freak. .And Hands Down and Bonnies Chance were back to defend past titles.
Oh, and there was an Aussie called Steel Jaw that nobody had heard of coming over from Melbourne.Chuckle chuckle.
As Dave Cannan so superbly told the story in the DB Trotting Annual the result was a cathartic shock for New Zealand harness racing. Its pampered stars,buried in depths of tradition of what made a Cup horse, completely destroyed. Nobody who saw that race can ever forget a stunning event-or its tragic aftermath.
Steel Jaw was the first Australian-trained horse to run in the race since Bay Foyle put up a great effort for fourth 12 years before after missing the start in the first televised Cup. The great Ribands had run in 1954, the first from his homeland since the War, but broke and lost his chance. And,just maybe, as a result New Zealand had gone to sleep on NZ Cups and Australian raiders.
Steel Jaw had caused some raised eyebrows running second to Popular Alm in the mobile Craven Mile at Brisbane on the eve of the trip.
But he had never raced over 3200. Cross.Never had a standing start. Cross.The critics pursed their lips and predicted another galloping Aussie come Cup day.
On the Sunday prior trainer Norm Lang,who had never heard of the horse as recently as April, ran Steel Jaw over 3200m at the then traditional pre-Cup week workouts. He ran 4.14 without turning a hair. But the standing start ? Hmmm. Only The Press harness editor Geoff Yule was a genuine convert. Hugely impressed on Sunday, by Cup morning he had Steel Jaw second pick.
Standing start ? Steel Jaw went out like an old stager,led after 250m and stayed there for the record 4.05.3 it took for him to destroy the cream of the Kiwi harness world.
The writer recalls his own humiliation. As Steel Jaw went past the stand with a round to go,Lang leaning hard against him in the cart my remark to Geoff Yule and Dave Cannan in the press stand was “let’s see what he’s got when he lets his head go”
Famous last words. Steel Jaw cleared out by 9 and a half lengths (conservative to the eye) when he had his head let go and Norm Lang had barely moved on him.After going keenly in front all the way he sprinted his last 400 in 28.2,lightning pace on the Addington track of the time.
The sporting Addington crowd gave the Australian a great reception once they had got over the shock-which took a while. Beaten drivers, left for once for no possible excuses, seemed flabbergasted.The truth was that apart from Hands Down’s driver Peter Jones who attempted to wrest the lead early on, they had been sandbagged by traditional Cup thinking.Keen leaders (nearly) always came back to the field.
If all that wasn’t enough on an unforgettable day,tragedy then took its turn.
Ossie Marr,Steel Jaw’s co-owner and popular with all who met him,collapsed at the presentation.His heart stopped several times but he was able to be transferred to hospital after emergency treatment on the course from Drs Louisson and Stevens and ultimately return home. But it had all been too much and within two months he suffered another heart attack, this time fatal.
Steel Jaw was beaten in the Free for All but came back to tie the NZ record for 2600 on the last day going from last to first in a tick over 28 in the middle stages. Cannan rightly took his fellow scribes to task when Steel Jaw could only tie Horse of the Year with Sir Castleton.The latter was a brilliant performer but had gone down to Basil Dean in Trotter of the Year poll and also to the other brilliant Australian at the meeting, Scotch Notch (handled by another unrelated Lang,Graeme) in the Dominion Handicap.
Perhaps in some eyes two brilliant Australians was just one too many.
The key to Steel Jaw’s meteoric rise,greeted as it was at the time with some suspicion in local circles, had been a solution to his bad habit of cross firing at speed affecting the sesamoid.He was still a maiden when Lang took over and then won seven in a row. A special pair of hind shoes developed for him by Lang’s veteran blacksmith, Tom Dillon,had solved the problem and the big Addington track was a huge bonus.
He hardly raced again. He went to Perth and on the tighter track the cross firing returned. In 1985 and as late as 1987 Lang got him back for a few races but the magic was gone. Officially he had only 24 starts in Australia in his entire career.
So for Australians there wasn’t a lot of Steel Jaw to remember.But for Kiwis there was a lesson they never forgot .