Melbourne Cup-winning trainer Darren Weir is much more than a boy from the bush
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Darren Weir - Police Investigation |
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Pazman
Champion Joined: 08 Oct 2008 Status: Offline Points: 11753 |
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If Bart or TW was training PDL would he be shorter than the current quote 5/1?
And if the trainer is not a factor based on ability, then we might be getting overs atm?
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djebel
Premium Joined: 07 Mar 2007 Status: Offline Points: 53960 |
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Could it be said then that She's Archie needed bad luck for for Makybe Diva, for herself to be good enough to win the race ? |
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reductio ad absurdum
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ExceedAndExcel
Champion Joined: 20 Dec 2008 Status: Offline Points: 16244 |
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Precisely! The miracle ride was the difference! |
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ExceedAndExcel
Champion Joined: 20 Dec 2008 Status: Offline Points: 16244 |
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When you come from as far back as Makybe Diva did in the 2003 Cup then you always need an element of luck to win. That's unless you are an out and out champion which she most certainly was not at that stage of her career. Rather than needing bad luck for Makybe Diva, She's Archie need Makybe Diva NOT to have extremely good luck. She was good enough to win a Melbourne Cup make no mistake about it. |
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Pazman
Champion Joined: 08 Oct 2008 Status: Offline Points: 11753 |
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Ernest
Champion Joined: 19 May 2013 Status: Offline Points: 1781 |
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Not this old chestnut! Every time she won the Melbourne Cup, somebody would come out and claim the runner-up should have won! Funny thing is, nobody ever seems to spend any time trawling through the wins of Gunsynd, Kingston Town, Tulloch, Phar Lap, or Bernborough looking for races they supposedly shouldn't have won. Just a thing that afflicts the modern champions.
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maxamill
Champion Joined: 14 Jan 2011 Location: vic Status: Offline Points: 1336 |
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Divas a champ. And weir is on his way to a champ. To right he got the ability as a trainer and has that grey idling nicely picking up a few hundred extra on the way to the big ones.
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ExceedAndExcel
Champion Joined: 20 Dec 2008 Status: Offline Points: 16244 |
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No, just the 2003 win. All you need to do is watch the replay to see how lucky she was to get a passage through the entire field.
Which horse should have beaten her in the others two? This isn't the point though. The point is that She's Archie was definitely good enough to win a Melb Cup. |
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chinaguy
Champion Joined: 24 Feb 2007 Location: China Status: Offline Points: 1442 |
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No she was not good enough to win a MC only good enough to run 2nd... history shows that...
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djebel
Premium Joined: 07 Mar 2007 Status: Offline Points: 53960 |
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On the luck metre which mare had the least luck ? |
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reductio ad absurdum
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Voss
Champion Joined: 15 Mar 2013 Status: Offline Points: 1248 |
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I think the point is that Weir has the required skills to do it with PDL.
A 2nd to the Diva proves that. |
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ExceedAndExcel
Champion Joined: 20 Dec 2008 Status: Offline Points: 16244 |
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Wrong as usual Chinaboy. History shows she DIDN'T win a Melbourne Cup not that she wasn't good enough to win one. Plenty of horse were good enough to win a particular race but for whatever reason didn't. You'll be telling us that Kingston Town wasn't good enough either no doubt. One thing history does show is that the majority of your posts are utter garbage. I take it you haven't been able to find any posts where I wished ill-fortune on Shamexpress? |
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Gay3
Moderator Group Joined: 19 Feb 2007 Location: Miners Rest Status: Offline Points: 51994 |
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No Moody blues over the rise and rise of trainer Darren Weir after his winning treble at Caulfield
Peter Moody is full of praise for the form of youg trainer Peter Weir and his stable of horses. Source: News Limited PETER Moody, the dominant Victorian trainer of the past four years, was genuinely excited for Darren Weir when the Ballarat trainer notched a treble at Caulfield last Thursday. "Hasn't Weiry had a great day. He's flying," Moody said. Moody needed to cast his mind back only six years to recall his arduous climb to the top of the mountain. The former Queenslander built a stable capable of coming from 60 to 70 winners behind Hall of Famers Lee Freedman and David Hayes to win his first metropolitan premiership and end a 32-year dominance of the title by the Freedman and Hayes clans. He has fought equally as hard to stay there, winning the past four premierships while conditioning a host of remarkable gallopers, including Black Caviar, Typhoon Tracy, Manighar, Lights Of Heaven, Reward For Effort, Magnus, Moment Of Change and Brambles. Moody doubtless can see much of himself in Weir, a country lad who has built a formidable stable and who has inched his way towards the top of the premiership table. Weir, who also had a double at Moonee Valley on Saturday, boasts 22 metropolitan wins for the season, five more than Moody. Moody accepts he is in a fight to retain his title. "My team has reached their level or been retired, and we have a stable in Sydney,'' he said. "We have a new batch and if they are good enough we can beat him (Weir), and if they are not he will beat us." Moody has about 160 horses on his books while Weir, 43, has a staggering 245. As an indication of his depth, his 22 wins have come from 18 individual gallopers. They have another battle at Flemington tomorrow, with Moody having five runners and Weir four. Moody's prime hope may be sprinter Flamberge in the 1200m Standish Handicap. The four-year-old has won four of 12 starts, including two at Headquarters. He was a brilliant first-up winner over 1100m at Caulfield a month ago. Weir will rely on country cups king Hurdy Gurdy Man in the 2800m Bagot Handicap. The six-year-old has this year won the Hobart, Murtoa and Hamilton Cups and finished third in the Ballarat Cup and second in the Werribee Cup. Meanwhile, one city win behind Moody is Hayes. He won the premiership for five consecutive years before heading to Hong Kong in 1996 and he's a force again after establishing a new base at Euroa. Hayes has four runners at Flemington tomorrow. |
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Wisdom has been chasing me but I've always outrun it!
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Pazman
Champion Joined: 08 Oct 2008 Status: Offline Points: 11753 |
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Moody should wipe the tears off his cheeks and stop being delusional by having a massive go with numbers over the last week of the year in hope of regaining the Metro premiership. Need to go back to the basics and cull his numbers.
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Gay3
Moderator Group Joined: 19 Feb 2007 Location: Miners Rest Status: Offline Points: 51994 |
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What took you so long Paz?
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Wisdom has been chasing me but I've always outrun it!
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linghi11
Champion Joined: 18 Apr 2013 Status: Offline Points: 7496 |
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less than one in 13 win at Weiry's, is that a good training statistic??
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to the victor
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Tlazolteotl
Champion Joined: 02 Oct 2012 Location: Elephant Butte Status: Offline Points: 31421 |
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"Country-based Darren Weir presents as the classic Aussie battler. He actually has Australia's biggest stable with an incredible 2006 starters in the past 12 months, while Chris Waller had 1733 and Gai Waterhouse 788. He excels at training for distance races. Good on you, Darren." Rob Waterhouse SMH
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JudgeHolden
Champion Joined: 16 Apr 2011 Status: Offline Points: 11728 |
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Now do average yearling price of horses trained, Rob.
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Heavenly Glow
Champion Joined: 25 Aug 2009 Location: Melbourne Status: Offline Points: 1569 |
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This bloke is on fire. Congrats D.Weir. Hard work finally paying off, and it is great to see.
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jayzaa
Premium Joined: 31 May 2010 Location: Avenel Vic Status: Offline Points: 2206 |
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Yep, hope he does a good job on the one he bought from me.
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www.keffelstein.com
gotta live the dream |
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Gay3
Moderator Group Joined: 19 Feb 2007 Location: Miners Rest Status: Offline Points: 51994 |
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Melbourne Cup-winning trainer Darren Weir is much more than a boy from the bush
Darren Weir with Lucky Paddy at his Forest Lodge stables at Miners Rest. Photo: Justin McManus Harvest time in the dry Mallee landscape is tough. There are long hot hours walking the cracked earth, and even the recent blessed rain means precious little now that the yellow waves of grain are already cut and siloed. In fact, the same drops of water that turned race tracks this week from fast to good to dead to soft to heavy are actually a hindrance, giving succour to rapacious weeds like bindi-eyes and paddy melons. Strapper Stevie Payne poses for a picture while cleaning out the stables. Photo: Justin McManus Darren Weir, trainer of Prince Of Penzance, the long-shot winner of the Melbourne Cup, would know that. He grew up in these seas of wheat, on a farm in tiny Berriwillock, nothing more than a blink on the Calder Highway between the equally anonymous Culgoa and Boigbeat. Perhaps 100 people live here, only a handful more than Weir employs as head of the largest thoroughbred racing outfit in the state. You can imagine then, what victory in the most prestigious race in the country means to the town. Weir is their favourite son, a straight-up bushy who was a horse breaker, track rider, farrier and strapper before he became the most successful trainer in Victoria. His big brother Chris still grows wheat and barley on the family plot, 1214 hectares. Out here, that's a small farm. "Darren was always skin and bone," says Chris, sitting at the local pub. "And fussy. He'd only eat meat and spuds." When not working the land, his childhood was spent fishing for redfin in the reservoir and yabbies in the dam. He went birdnesting with his brother, pinching eggs from Mickey miners and willy wagtails. He was eight when he got his first horse, a palomino named Sonny. "Darren was scared of it at first," says his dad, Roy. "But once he got on top he was laughing. Nothing could get him off." By the time he was 10, locals remember him standing on the rump of full-grown horses with a whip in hand. While other teens were out racing cars and wrecking utes, Weir was on horseback. One school holidays, at 15, he worked for a trainer in Birchip, sleeping in a caravan each night after days handling stallions and preparing yearlings. He never went back to class after that. The chronology is well told. He went to John Castleman in Mildura, then to Austy Coffey back in Berriwillock, then to South Australia under Colin Hayes before Terry O'Sullivan in Stawell. As a trainer he won his first race – a maiden at Avoca – when he was 25. Now the boy from Berri' has beaten the raiders from Europe, Japan and America, and kept the Cup in Victoria. On Wednesday he will bring it through Berriwillock. "We're in shock," says Chris. "It's put us on the map." Berriwillock needs this. The general store closed a few months ago. The post office and swimming pool are all that's left. That and the pub, which is being refurbished in time for next week. According to Ron Corbett, the unofficial "town historian", the Golden Crown watering hole is all-important. "The pub is the last gasp for this town," he says. "I'm a Methodist and I don't drink, but here I am in the pub. It's one of the few places for people to mix." The Weirs were pioneers here, he adds, among the first to arrive when the land opened up in 1891. In 1925, Weir's grandfather was the first man in town to own a tractor. But the population dwindles each year as farms grow larger and more mechanised. "This win is the greatest thing," says Corbett. "He's the boy from the bush, and he's beaten Sangster and Williams and all their squillions." The place is buzzing. Men have been pitching in around the clock to fix the pub for one cracker of a party. They've knocked down walls, laid new plaster, fixed beautiful pressed tin to the bar and new merbau skirtings to the floor. Garry Summerhayes, chairman of the community development group, is planning the day. There'll be a civic reception, a luncheon with barbecued meat, hot chips, and every family will bring a salad. Hundreds will come from all over Buloke Shire. "This has just brought people out," he says. "They've got a smile from ear to ear. I met an architect from Geelong yesterday about a leaking roof in the community centre, but we spent the whole time talking about Darren Weir." And, of course, there's the publican himself, Bobby Borlase, who stepped in to buy the pub and restore it with new carpet, new jukebox, new pool table. Borlase is fixing the guest rooms, too, and turning the parlour into a place to sell milk and bread and toilet paper, so the old folks don't have to drive into town. He hopes the pub will have a new life. He remembers it as a teenager. "The crowds would be five deep, back from the bar," he says. "More recently, half a dozen flat would be a busy night. "The win has just given the place such a buzz, and a bit of vim," he says. "That's why we're renaming it the Prince Of Penzance, at least for the next year." Of course, Weir didn't come out of nowhere. Nor did he get to where he is by knowing the gaskin from the hock and the pastern from the fetlock. The Berriwillock locals know him as a horseman, but he is also a builder, and he has been building for some time. His Forest Lodge facility outside Ballarat – fondly known as "Weir Town" – is now the largest of its kind in Victoria. With another stable in Warrnambool, his operation has a $14 million annual budget and is constantly expanding – accumulating new horses, facilities and employees. Seemingly everything he wins goes back into the business, in service to the animal. Hang the cost – the price tag is Mick Leonard's problem. Leonard, Weir's financial guru, describes the renovation of a few horse boxes as a little example. Weir knocked down old walls to create two boxes instead of four, so that each stall could be twice as large. "And if he puts something new up and he doesn't like it, he'll rip it right down again," says Leonard. "I've seen him change designs four times. It always has to be right, and better." Weir hired racing manager Jeremy Rogers five years ago to help communicate with owners, realising he was "hopeless" at the task. "But he can get horses to do things that few others can do," Rogers says. "That's his gift." His brain is apparently a thing to behold – committing multiple schedules and horse flesh facts to memory. At any moment he knows which horse is in which paddock, and what they're eating. "He wants to know everything," Leonard says. "He misses nothing." Stories of his generosity are legend. Leonard remembers a down-on-his-luck country trainer who couldn't pay his feed bill, perhaps a few thousand dollars. Weir quickly and quietly stepped in to reimburse the supplier. "Darren just wanted to get him back on his feet," says Leonard, "but he wouldn't want anyone to know." Rogers stopped trying to pay for lunch or split the dinner bill long ago. "I've put a $50 note in his hands so many times," he says, "but he just drops them on the ground." Leonard says Weir engenders fierce loyalty in all his staff – that he makes people proud of their work, as if their contribution were integral. By the same token, if you cross Darren Weir – if you fail him in your effort or honesty – there are no second chances. "He's not a milksop," says Leonard. "He's no pushover." And there's the paradox. Weir cultivates a relaxed country persona, but in reality his practice is sophisticated and meticulous and, to an extent, ruthless. He is a kid from the country, but he drives a pretty expensive Jeep and keeps close watch over a slick business in a cut-throat industry. "Darren Weir plays the boy from the bush well," says Leonard, "but if you think that's all he is, then you'll undersell him to buggery." Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/sport/horseracing/melbourne-cupwinning-trainer-darren-weir-is-much-more-than-a-boy-from-the-bush-20151106-gksly5.html#ixzz3qrFsrLFA Follow us: @theage on Twitter | theageAustralia on Facebook Edited by Gay3 - 08 Nov 2015 at 12:09pm |
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Wisdom has been chasing me but I've always outrun it!
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VOYAGER
Champion Joined: 04 Aug 2007 Location: Australia Status: Offline Points: 18737 |
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Bart type record already in the cup. I have him with six starters for a win, a fourth and a second.
I can see Australian Bloodstock switching from Kris Lees to him permanently now, especially after some of that group won with Dandino yesterday. He is the one who could challenge Lee's cup record over the next twenty years! |
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Remember, it might take intelligence to be smart , but it takes experience to be wise
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Lordy
Champion Joined: 22 May 2010 Location: Sunshine State Status: Offline Points: 13887 |
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2006 starters in the lat 12 months!! How many does he have in work?
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deejays destiny
Champion Joined: 11 Sep 2015 Status: Offline Points: 4148 |
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I think he has about 200 in work
140 odd at Ballarat 50 at Wangoom 10 at Yangery (McLean property)
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Panto
Foal Joined: 12 Sep 2015 Status: Offline Points: 27 |
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Weir is a deadset freak. Love the bloke's ability to get all his horses at their top pace hitting the line. Best trainer in Australia IMO.
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Letskeepithonest
Champion Joined: 02 Apr 2014 Status: Offline Points: 340 |
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Agreed has half the quality of the other big gun... super trainer.
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SkyDancer
Champion Joined: 02 Aug 2014 Location: Cranbourne Status: Offline Points: 8429 |
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He has some cracking nominations for this weekend at Sandown
The ones I am keen to see are; Puccini - ex kiwi having first start for him Lidari - first up from Moody Signoff - back from injury Lord Van Percy - back from a year off first start for Weir Master Zephyr - impressed with the first run in Aus, now joined the Weir team |
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subastral
Champion Joined: 28 Jul 2011 Location: Melbourne Status: Offline Points: 34887 |
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Not sure if his focus has shifted lately. He had a period 2 years ago where he was working wonders with some tried horses from other stables. Those types seem to have dried up, or not worked.
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Sworn Revenge
Champion Joined: 24 Jul 2014 Location: Melbourne Status: Offline Points: 1210 |
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Fair to say Sub he's still doing that - Dandino being one of many - however off his own bat or through syndicators he has started to acquire a lot of yearlings in the last year
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SkyDancer
Champion Joined: 02 Aug 2014 Location: Cranbourne Status: Offline Points: 8429 |
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By the looks of it he also has a lot of new owners and syndicates sending him horses, I would think he would have close to 500 on the books (including yearlings and spelling)
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