Barry Wall has trained greyhounds to win city races, pacers to win in the bush, met with success as an owner of gallopers and now added training a winner at the gallops in his own right to his list of achievements in the three racing codes.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
"Perhaps I'll try guinea pigs next," Wall joked on Monday morning while tending to the two horses he has in work.
Wall, who is also the Cowra racetrack curator, was reflecting on the achievement of training his first winner at the Narromine Picnic race meeting on Saturday.
Wall and Richmond based jockey Alexander Lemarie each achieved career first wins when combining with Deshawn in the 1100 metres Maiden Plate.
Taking the lead at the top of the straight, Deshawn ($2.80 favourite) kicked away and won by nearly two lengths from Magic Gift (Wayne Wheatley) and Trampler (Jody Hughes).
Wall's jockey Alexandre Lemarie, formerly from France, is a trackwork rider at Agnes Banks for Godolphin trainer James Cummings.
From just seven starts, three of which were before he joined Wall's boutique stable, Deshawn has taken his record to a win and a second.
"I've only had him for four, I bought him from Joe Curran at Hawkesbury," Wall said.
The purchase price? A bargain at just $700.
He has now taken his prizemoney earnings to $7671 for Wall and his co-owners Mrs K D Collins, Mr C Collins.
Saturday's win was over 1100 metres but the breeding page suggests we won't see the best of Deshawn until Wall gets the three year-old gelding over a bit more ground.
A son of Zoffany, Deshawn is out of the well bred Monchelle, making him a half brother to the good Perth galloper Travellin, the winner of seven races.
Monchelle is a direct descendant of one of the thoroughbred studbooks most influential broodmares La Troienne with her pedigree incorporating four of her best daughters in Baby League, Striking, Glamour and Intriguing.
Four of the last twenty Kentucky Derby winners have descended from La Troienne - Super Saver, Smarty Jones, Go For Gin and Sea Hero.
In Australia La Troienne features in the pedigree of one of our leading sires, More Than Ready.
Monchelle is the daughter of arguably Sadler's Wells' greatest son in Montjeu. Montjeu is the sire of the horse of the modern era in Camelot.
Monchelle's dam is by the incomparable Danehill from an international family.
"Joe (Curran) said he's just not going to make city class," Wall said of his stable star.
"He is well bred, he's full Irish bred, (his sire and dam) both won over ground.
"He won over 1100 on Saturday.
"At the moment, only being a three-year-old he's still learning how to race.
"Once's he learns how to switch off you'll get him out to a mile, no worries, but at the moment he just wants to go hard so we let him go hard."
Booking French rider Alexandre Lemarie came about following a call to Wall from the rider's wife.
"She rang me during the week," Wall said.
"I said I'm waiting for two jockeys to get back to me and I said don't worry about them, put him on.
"I did see him ride at Forbes a couple of weeks earlier.
"That was his first two rides and he rode alright. Because he was claiming 3kgs and (Deshawn) not being a real big horse I said the weight relief would help.
"And later on when I found out who he works for and what he does, why wouldn't you put him on.
"He works for James Cummings (Godolphin) and travels around everywhere with his horses.
"He's got a bit of an opinion of him, so it worked out good, it was his first winner and my first winner."
While Deshawn is naturally elevated to stable star, Wall has another in his stable that he has hopes will soon have her time in the spotlight.
"There's not much between them on the track," he said of Deshawn and stablemate Irish Skies.
"She's had a lot of issues but she'll get there.
"I've got a lot of confidence in her, if you put the two out together, work them together they'll work head to head, they're as good as each other. He's just had more will to win than her at the moment.
"I quite often work them together Mathew (Cahill) will ride this bloke and Eleanor (Webster-Hawes) will ride her and they go to the line together all of the time.
"I know it will happen with her but it's just going to take a bit of time.
"I was lucky with this bloke, $700, I put one bid in for him and thought I'm not going to get him and then I got a message saying I got the horse."
When he arrived at Wall's stable days later he had already had three starts, was full of feed and basically ready to race.
"He was ready to go, he did have problems but I think that was mainly because of the environment he'd been in, where there's a million horses getting about and he couldn't handle it.
"Now he's very quiet, he's always been good to handle but on the track he'd get fired up, now's he's good and getting better all the time.
"He'll make someone a beautiful pony later on," Wall said.
But for now that'll have to wait with the promise of more to come for Wall's $700 bargain buy.
Cowra's success on the track continued at Sunday's Parkes meeting with trainer Michael Lynch and jockey Eleanor Webster-Hawes combining with Lygia in a Class 2 over 1600 metres.
After settling in fourth from the rails draw Webster-Hawes edged Lygia into clear running turning for home and despite racing greenly the daughter of Manhatten Rain and Magical Mist overpowered the early pacesetters for a progressive one length win.
Lynch came close to pulling off a double when Currawar (M Cahill) went within a head of victory in a 1400 metre maiden at odds of $51.