News

Ollie proves too smart by half to land the well-planned plunge

9th Mar 2010

The Age - Patrick Bartley - Tuesday, 9 March 2010

OVER the decades, racehorse trainers would never debate whether a horse was correctly weighted for a race.

It was a no-go zone. The handicapper was the arch enemy and every pound - or kilogram - was vital to the horse's chances of winning.

In the late 1980s, the late Ted Cameron and jockey Alf Matthews had worked for months on a middle-distance galloper, Cheval Cavalier, they believed had group 1 potential.

Cameron, who trained in South Australia, believed that an ideal stepping stone to the Epsom Handicap was to head to Newcastle for the Cameron Handicap, a highly rated 1400-metre race.

When weights came out Cheval Cavalier was given 49 kilograms.

A long meeting ensued between Cameron, Matthews and the owners as to who would ride the horse, as Matthews, one of Australia's finest jockeys, could not ride below 49.5 kilos.

''I told them that that would be my limit and I'd be stupid trying to get down any lower in the time frame I was set,'' Matthews recalled this week.

''I knew Ted was a stickler for weights but, more importantly, if we were to win the Cameron he would be rehandicapped on 49.5 and not 49 for a race like the Epsom so I said 'let's have a look for someone else'.''

Matthews and Cameron decided to fly Melbourne apprentice Damien Oliver to Newcastle to take the mount.

Cameron, Matthews and the owners of Cheval Cavalier were a formidable group and were involved in some of Australia's biggest plunges.

They rarely missed when they considered a horse a certainty and Cheval Cavalier was no exception. Backed around Australia for substantial amounts, Cheval Cavalier under his featherweight, didn't let the team down.

And they achieved their main aim - to get the four-year-old into the Epsom Handicap, as well as landing the huge Newcastle plunge.

Ted Cameron's son, Russell, also a trainer, was overseeing two horses in Sydney for his father at the time.

''I started to understand how much money had been won when I got into the lift at the hotel and John Meagher and Greg Hall got in with me and dared me to open my suitcase as they suspected there was tens of thousands of dollars in there,'' Russell Cameron recalled.

''But there was just a pair of riding silks and some notebooks, but I got the drift that the boys had landed a pretty big plunge.''

However, everything didn't quite go to plan. Yes, they had cleaned up and Matthews had shown wisdom by standing aside to allow the horse to carry 49 kilos. And Cheval Cavalier had squeezed his way into a group 1 race that looked an ideal assignment.

But it was not until they were about to celebrate the Cameron Handicap win that Oliver admitted that he had been unable to make 49 and had ridden a half-kilo overweight.