Northerly

[Horny Harry]

Understanding Northerly is Kersley's secret
By Craig Young
October 21 2002
Champion combination: Caulfield Cup winner Northerly nuzzles his trainer, Fred Kersley, who holds the glittering prize. Photo: Vince Caligiuri
If only people could see what Fred Kersley sees in Northerly. It would certainly help to describe what makes this six-year-old a freak.
What's known is that housed in a chassis born for greatness is an insatiable will to conquer. A rare commodity in a thoroughbred.
And a desire to defy racing history, which is difficult to do.
Horses can't do this, for one reason or another - usually weight-related - simply because it hasn't been done for 20-or-so years. We know the spiel.
But then along comes Northerly and a grandfather named Fred Kersley. A horseman from across the Nullarbor who dominated harness racing for decades before switching to thoroughbreds.
Kersley is Northerly's trainer: a wise, deep-thinking man, whose every answer to a barrage of questions from the media is delivered after a short pause. No shooting off the mouth here.
And so it was in the aftermath of Northerly's crushing victory in the Caulfield Cup on Saturday that Kersley gave us a clue to how he relates with an animal. How he gets inside a horse's mind.
The layperson is left to ponder from the outside. Look at the coat, cast an eye over legs, admire muscle tone. Yet, it would seem Kersley peers into the soul.
As Northerly returned to thunderous applause, courtesy of some 42,500 punters and partygoers at the course, Kersley made his way to the iron horse and looked into the thoroughbred's kind eye.
He told the inquirer Northerly had a "good look in his eye". Asked what that amounted to, the trainer drew breath before replying: "He was comfortable, his attitude was good. If they are in any pain, the lines in the eye will tell you."
If only Kersley could have had a look at those following Northerly back to the parade ring, it would have made for an interesting assessment. The chasers were no doubt in pain for there is little relief in being beaten.
And don't worry that the winning time of two minutes and 30.38 seconds was a tick more than five seconds outside Diatribe's race and course record set two years ago, and only half a second quicker than Ethereal's nose win on a wet track last year.
http://www.smh.com.au/ffxImage/urlpicture_id_1034561389421_2002/10/20/21spt_%20Fred_Kersley.jpg
Champion combination: Caulfield Cup winner Northerly nuzzles his trainer, Fred Kersley, who holds the glittering prize. Photo: Vince Caligiuri
The 125th running of the Caulfield Cup wasn't put on for Northerly. He just took it by throat and squeezed until he was ready to unleash. Unleash awesome will.
Horses capable of unbelievable things have a habit of carrying out such tasks. Northerly took charge under a big weight of his own destiny from up front and defied all runners to mow him down.
Placed outside the leader, it was left to those chasing to make moves. No jockey wanted to tangle with Northerly mid-race, for they know it usually means elimination from the contest.
Who was going to serve it, then? What jockey wanted to put their chances at risk? Freakish gallopers have always been dictators. Duelling with greatness results in heartbreak.
Thankfully, the condition of Northerly's eyes augurs well for this week and the gelding's defence of last year's hard-earned W.S. Cox Plate: the race that signalled to one and all that Northerly will one day be inducted into racing's Hall of Fame.
Another win in the championship event at Moonee Valley next Saturday will only hasten the call-up, for Cox Plate winners aren't supposed to return a year later and win a Caulfield Cup.
The last horse to do so was Tobin Bronze in the spring of 1967. Tobin Bronze went on to make it back-to-back Cox Plates.
Northerly is reworking the modern-age mould, which is usually what superstars do.
Northerly became the first horse since the grand grey Ming Dynasty in 1980 to lump 58 kilograms to Caulfield Cup glory. That's 22 years - and jockey vests weren't around then. Add 1kg for the vest hoops must wear now, and Northerly carted 59kg on Saturday. You go back to Tobin Bronze, which made light of 61.5kg, to find a horse carrying more to win the country's toughest staying test.
A humble Kersley continually heaps praise on the horse, as deflecting attention from himself is the trainer's way. One suspects the trainer would have us believe most could prepare Northerly, but that is far from the truth.
"I have a strange confidence about this horse doing the job and he never lets us down," he said. "He creates his own history and I'm grateful for playing a small part."
Kersley's part, though, is much greater than that. He can see inside, knows exactly what makes Northerly tick.

[Horny Harry]

From the West Australian newspaper
By Robert Edwards
Northerly part-owner Ron Sayers has struck a deal which will see two new Victorian part-owners of Northerly.
Sayers has agreed in principle to selling a 10 per cent share in Northerly in return for a half share in the gelding's orphaned half-brother. But the deal is contingent on the colt getting insurance cover.
The colt, by leading stallion Flying Spur, was left orphaned when his dam North Bell died during birth at NSW's leading breeding farm, Segenhoe Stud, a fortnight ago.
The colt's owners Robert Clemenger and Rod Dufficy have agreed to swap a 50 per cent share in their youngster for a 10 per cent share in Northerly.
Sayers, a former Kalgoorlie businessman, owns a 30 per cent share in Northerly with Goldfields mates Tony Patrizi, Peter Bartlett and Ian Grljusich. Other part-owners Neville and Sue Duncan and Judy Kersley, whose husband Fred trains Northerly, have yet to decide whether they will enter into the deal.
The unusual deal was sealed at Caulfield last Saturday before Northerly's historic Caulfield Cup win.
Sayers has agreed the new owners will receive their portion of the $1.35 million first prizemoney once insurance cover has been cleared.

[Horny Harry]

From: Judge Sent: 23/10/2002 5:15 PM
Northerly fans give up half a chance
By PATRICK SMITH
October 23, 2002
THE romance of racing can be excruciating and protracted. Imagine this. You may be the winners of the 2002 Caulfield Cup and proud part-owners of Northerly.
But you will not be sure for another three weeks, when a battling orphan foal faces a veterinary test in the Hunter Valley.
That is the lot of Rod Dufficy and Andrew Harcourt. The pair also may be winners of the Cox Plate if Northerly can triumph again in the $3million race at Moonee Valley on Saturday. And the $4m Melbourne Cup is not definitely off Northerly's agenda either.
In an intriguing story of late-night deals and hurried plane flights, Dufficy and Harcourt have agreed to swap a 50 per cent interest in Northerly's half-brother, a foal by Flying Spur, for a 10 per cent interest in the champion Northerly.
The deal was confirmed late on the eve of the Caulfield Cup but cannot be sealed until the foal passes a veterinary inspection in about three weeks. North Bell, the dam of Northerly, died giving birth to the Flying Spur colt on October 9 at Segenhoe Stud.
Three part-owners of Northerly -- Ron Sayers, Peter Bartlett and Tony Patrizi -- have agreed to swap a 10 per cent interest in Northerly for a half-share in the foal. Northerly's other part-owners, Judith Kersley, wife of the gelding's trainer Fred, and Neville and Sue Duncan, are also considering the deal.
The retrospective agreement, brokered by Lindsay Park bloodstock manager Mark Pilkington at 11pm last Friday, has been cleared by Racing Victoria stewards and depends only on the foal passing a standard veterinary check at 30 days.
Sayers, Patrizi and Bartlett chartered a plane to the Hunter Valley on Monday to inspect the foal, which remains at a Scone veterinary clinic. The foal was led into a day paddock for the new owners and is progressing well.
The foal, which was in a critical condition immediately at birth but was able to stand after two days' care, will remain an entire and be raced out of Lindsay Park.
North Bell has produced three stakes winners. Northerly has won 16 races, including seven Group Is and $5.8m in prizemoney. North Boy has won six races, including the rich Group II KrisFlyer Sprint in Singapore. Northern Song, successful at Group III level, won five times for $284,245.
North Bell, sold to Harcourt and Dufficy for $40,000 in 1999 before either North Boy or Northerly had raced, was valued at more than $1m in a report in September last year.
The progeny of North Bell are precious things. The Flying Spur colt is her first foal to live since North Boy. In 1999, she lost twins to Rory's Jester, missed again to Rory's Jester and then missed to End Sweep. Her only other live progeny is Broadwalk Bell, who yesterday returned a 45-day positive pregnancy test to Rory's Jester. That foal would bring a pretty penny.
The Flying Spur foal's desperate fight to survive would have been no deterrent to Northerly's owners. The Caulfield Cup winner and defending Cox Plate champ had to be resuscitated by heart massage on birth after being discovered unconscious by breeder and part-owner Neville Duncan.
Northerly has been fighting ever since. Now the little bloke at Scone is doing the same.
The Australian

[VINCENT]

Northerly spurred to greatness
By Craig Young
October 26 2002
Two races away from greatness last spring, Northerly had decided enough was enough. Trainer Fred Kersley was about to call it quits.
But, as fate would have it, a horseman named Ross McDonald bumped into Kersley in a Caulfield drinking den known as the "mothers' club", and the resurrection of Northerly, this year's defending Cox Plate champ and Caulfield Cup winner, was a set of spurs away.
"Northerly jacked up one Saturday morning with Damien Oliver [jockey] on board," Ross McDonald recalled yesterday.
"He went out onto the track but come back in, he went back out again with the pony but he just wouldn't go."
The chance meeting in the watering hole led to McDonald, who didn't know Kersley, asking him how his record-breaking Australian Cup winner was going.
Fred said, 'terrible, I can't get the horse going, looks like I'll be taking him home'," McDonald said. "I asked, 'you got a good pair of spurs? and he said, 'no'. I said, 'I've got a pair over there if you want to lend them' and he said, 'Got anyone that can use them?'."
The day after, Northerly walked out onto the track with his usual work rider on board but again failed to break into a trot.
"He jacked up again and Fred come over to my stable and said, 'here is the horse, do what you want with him?'," McDonald said.
McDonald, a two-time Caulfield Cup-winning trainer, called for the spurs and told his son Clinton to put them on.
Clinton was the young man trainer Lee Freedman flew to Sydney in the autumn to work on multi-million dollar colt Don Eduardo, which responded and went on to win the AJC Australian Derby.
A six-time Victorian polocrosse representative, former stockman, horse breaker, pony club and dressage player, Clinton jumped at the opportunity to put Northerly straight.
"As soon as I got on him he wanted to test me out," he said. "He was strong-minded, he was trying to be the boss.
"You don't kick them with the spurs on, you squeeze them, roll them along the side of the horse and they go, 'shit, I've never had that happen before'.
"I gave him a touch-up, he tried me for the first three days."
McDonald returned to his dressage days and showed Northerly all the basics of that pursuit.
"Walking, trotting, cantering, just asked him to do things like bending round my leg," he said.
"Tight circles, stop, back up. Asked him to bend around trees, zig zag through trees.
"Anything I asked of the horse had to be done properly. It was basic work, making him listen and respect you."
Clinton spent about an hour a day with Northerly in the lead-up to the Yalumba Stakes, which the West Australian iron horse won.
"He's the most beautifully balanced horse I'd ever sat on," McDonald said. "He can do figure eights, flying changes, things that dressage horses take years to learn. He can do things racehorses can't do, he was like a stock horse, a cutting horse ...
"It seems totally natural to him but he is a highly intelligent horse, he is always thinking. After a race, look at him in the mounting yard, his eyes and ears are watching and listening to everything that's going on."
To stimulate Northerly's mind, McDonald recommended to Kersley, whom he describes as a "genius", to continue the dressage after the horse returned to the west following his victory over Sunline and co in last year's plate.
"That's why he is racing so true now," McDonald said. "I knew how good he was but I knew he'd get better because he had that much improvement mentally."
McDonald reckons Northerly is an "incredible" thoroughbred, an "absolute machine" and a "freak".
"I reckon he is one horse that could carry 60kg and win a Melbourne Cup," he said. "It's a big statement but, on the feel he gives out on the track, I reckon he can. He'll work two rounds on the track here and he gets stronger and stronger the further he goes."
McDonald has no doubt Northerly can making it successive Cox Plates at Moonee Valley today.
"It comes down to the horse's will to win," he said. "Northerly keeps finding one length, two, he is so hard to get past.
"He was gone in last year's Cox Plate but he got to the turn and saw those two horses [Sunline and Viscount] and latched on to them.
"He is a freak."
 Hoofnote: Ross McDonald and a group of owners went out for dinner last Saturday night after their mare Tully Thunder finished down the track in Northerly's Caulfield Cup. Kersley and some 70 family and friends were also there celebrating. Kersley paid McDonald's dinner bill.

[Horny Harry]

Dressage is great for any racehorse. More trainers should do it but many of them have something against it, which is pretty stupid cause its all good basic training.

[Horny Harry]

Northerly does it again
As one great one bowed out, head held high, another confirmed his greatness when Northerly defended his Cox Plate crown at Moonee Valley this afternoon.
It had been given a build up bigger than “Ben Hur” and ultimately it delivered everything one could ask for as the ultimate in race pressure was applied and only the truly outstanding stood a chance from half way through.
Greg Childs as expected went straight to the lead on Sunline and set a moderate early pace with Northerly and three year-old Bel Esprit keeping close company. Defier and Grandera settled beautifully midfield. Lonhro went to second last.
Sunline looked magnificent and it was her last hoorah. Childs wasn’t going to die wondering. He knew he had a horse who could not only apply incredible pressure but could withstand it should the others respond, and there would be no tomorrow.
He picked up the pace with 1200 metres to go and by the 1000 metre mark all horses were beginning to reach deeply for reserves.
Some responded, others cracked, with Bel Esprit the first to succumb.
By the 600 metres Northerly was responding powerfully, Defier was chasing hard with Grandera, both making ground. Lonhro was searching for what he needed but wasn’t finding enough of it.
Into the short straight Patrick Payne brought Northerly alongside Sunline where she passed him the crown, honourably admitted defeat, and bravely kept fighting.
He was just too good.
He had carried 58kg to win the Caulfield Cup last Saturday over 2400 metres and just seven days later beaten what many considered the greatest field ever assembled in Australia to become undeniably one of the greats of the Australian turf.
Defier claimed second in another outstanding performance.
He was chasing yet labouring. He was out on his feet in the straight but he kept finding something.
Grandera grabbed third in another brave display.
Half way down the straight he ducked out sharply but it cost him nothing. Had he kept straight he still would have finished third.
Sunline ultimately finished fourth but she lost nothing.
There was nothing left to prove and she had set them a champion’s test. 43 starts, 32 wins, 13 Group Ones, it speaks for itself and afterwards winning trainer Fred Kersley was quick to pay her his respects.
“She’s still the benchmark. I’m full of admiration for her.”
“I’d have been happy to see her win,” said winning rider Patrick Payne.
But it was Kersley’s day along with Northerly and Patrick Payne, who had taken the mount after last week’s winning rider Greg Childs chose to maintain his famous partnership with Sunline to the last.
“What a great horse!” said Payne.
“It was actually a bit easier than I thought it was going to be.”
“He’s unbelievable. When I asked him to improve I knew it was going to be a good day.”
Kersley, as he did after the Caulfield Cup, could only show pride in his horse.
“I’m so proud of him. He’s proved his greatness.”
“Words fail me.”
In winning today Northerly took his record to eight Group One wins and over $7.8 million, the second highest stakes earner of all time in this part of the world behind Sunline.
He became the 11th horses to win two Cox Plates and joins a list which includes Beau Vite, Chatham, Flight, Hydrogen, Kingston Town, Phar Lap, Sunline, Tobin Bronze, Tranquil Star and Young Idea.
Afterwards, when the dust had settled, thoughts turned to the Melbourne Cup.
Last week Kersley declared him a non-runner when given a 2kg penalty, taking his weight to 60kg for the Cup, but today his adamant “no” had become “we’ll decide in the next day or so”.
The connections are rethinking and Payne commented he thought he was “an ideal Melbourne Cup horse”, as diplomatically as possible.
The bookies reacted by shortening his price in to 9/1.

[hobbes]

awesome horse and just incredible to win the CC with 58Kg and then follow up a week later with the Cox Plate. :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

[Horny Harry]

Northerly spoils Sunline's farewell
By Craig Young, Moonee Valley
October 27 2002
The Sun-Herald
http://www.smh.com.au/ffxImage/urlpicture_id_1035504924993_2002/10/26/spt_coxplate27.jpg
Patrick Payne sools Northerly past the post as the horse brilliantly wins his second successive WS Cox Plate. Below: Jockey Greg Childs rides Sunline into fourth. Photos: Dallas Kilponen, Mark Dadswell/Getty Images
Western Australian iron horse Northerly claimed back-to-back Cox Plate victories at Moonee Valley yesterday when displaying the courage reserved for special racehorses in what was billed as the best Plate in history.
The warrior became the first horse since Tobin Bronze in 1967 to win the Caulfield Cup-Cox Plate double and in doing so left the champion galloper Sunline in his wake once again.
Northerly wore down Sunline 12 months ago preventing the New Zealand great from winning the Cox Plate for a third consecutive year.
Yesterday Sunline laid it on the line, bowling along out in front but Northerly was within striking distance after Patrick Payne seized the initiative early when racing forward.
Payne was having his first ride on Northerly after Greg Childs, who won last Saturday's Caulfield Cup on the five-year-old, stuck with Sunline. Northerly provided Payne with his first Cox Plate win.
"I'm so proud of the horse," Northerly's trainer, Fred Kersley, said yesterday.
"He proved he is a great horse today, a great horse. He has made us so proud."
Northerly pounced on Sunline halfway up the straight and had to withstand the finish of the Guy Walter-trained Defier to score the gamest of wins.
The international raider, Grandera, didn't handle the tight-turning track yesterday but the three-time Group 1 winner in Europe this season managed to finish third.
As for Sunline, Kersley paid tribute.
"I have the greatest admiration for the mare," Kersley said.
"She is still the benchmark, we spoiled the party last year but she is a great mare, what else can you say."
In an amazing five seasons of racing, Sunline rose to become the greatest thoroughbred mare racing has produced in the bottom half of the world.
At one point Sunline was
rated as the best mare in the world. Apart from two Cox Plates victories Sunline collected as many Doncaster Handicaps at Royal Randwick, considered the toughest metric mile on the Australian calendar.
Sunline set a new weight-carrying record for a mare when winning this year's Doncaster with 58kg. She ventured to Hong Kong twice and after being beaten on International day in 1999, her connections once again took up a challenge. A year later Sunline returned to the former colony and at Sha Tin proved a conqueror on the world stage.
And there was Dubai and the World Cup meeting last year. Sunline may have finished third - beaten less than two heads - after being terrorised in front, but it may well have been her greatest effort.
The daughter of Desert Sun out of the Western Symphony mare Songline won races at age two, three, four, five, six and seven. She was a champion and she has raced for the last time.
Racing will survive but it won't be the same.

[Horny Harry]

5 Cox Plates (http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/10/26/1035504924453.html)

[imaufo]

bumpity bump