Girls Can't Put This Bull Off His Game

The Sunday Age

Sunday February 8, 2004

Stephen Howell

For now, the bull remains a bulldog. The bull, of course, is Australia's weight-for-age champion Lonhro and, although he is a five-year-old stallion who later this year will be serving mares, he is keeping his mind on racing.

Put a saddle on him and, according to Wayne Hawkes, the only interest he would have in Sunline would be to run her down, as he did so magnificently two springs ago in the Yalumba Stakes (2000 metres) at Caulfield.

At the same track yesterday it was another mare, Vocabulary, who had him stretching his neck in the C. F. Orr Stakes over 1400 metres, his 23rd win and ninth group 1 success from 31 starts.

The handsome black took the bump Vocabulary gave him when she shifted out with 200 metres to run, rebalanced and kept his mind on winning to finish a short half-head in front and take his Caulfield record to five wins in six starts.

Hawkes, boss of his father John's Melbourne stables, said: ``As soon as you put the saddle on him, you could deadset stand Sunline in front of him for 10 minutes and he could not care less."

Hawkes said Lonhro had always been that way at the track.

``They've got to have the right attitude (to stay as stallions)," he said. ``We can't make him switch off and make him relax.

``There are plenty of horses that have had plenty of ability, but they keep them colts when the bottom line is they haven't got the right attitude."

Of Lonhro, his sire Octagonal and other Ingham stallions Viscount, Over, Dracula and Encores, Hawkes said: ``They've all had the gun attitude. There's never an inkling you need to geld them - and that's the difference."

Hawkes said there had been no big change to Lonhro's routine as his jowls thickened with age.

``You just have to try and have him mentally switched on," he said.

``Physically he's fine and you can work him as hard as you want.

``He's a pretty focused horse. He might have a scream every now and then, but he is a five-year-old bull."

So, at the first start in his final campaign, Lonhro picked up another $195,000 for Woodlands Stud, owned by Bob Ingham and the estate of his brother Jack, to take his racing earnings to $4,579,080.

The crowd's favourite started at $1.90 and had all bar rider Darren Beadman with hearts in their mouths when he seemed to be struggling to make up ground between the 200 and 100-metre marks on a track that appeared to favour leaders.

As Lonhro crossed the line course announcer Greg Miles called the win belligerent. It was the perfect word and this time the fans who held up the sign ``Death, taxes and Lonhro" got it right.

They had been disappointed last time they had paraded their sign when the champ was beaten for the second successive year in the Cox Plate at Moonee Valley.

Asked yesterday if he would have liked the Cox Plate to be held at Caulfield instead of the Valley, Hawkes said: ``It's easy to say that, but what do you do? Hindsight's a wonderful thing. If we knew what we know now back then we'd all be filthy rich in Tahiti."

Hawkes and his horses aren't doing too badly and, although Lonhro's reputation was dented by his inability to win the weight-for-age championship, he has the chance to catch, or even pass, Octagonal's 10 group 1 wins.

Whether that will be in Melbourne next month in the Australian Cup - Occy's last win in Victoria was in that race - or in Sydney remains a stable secret.

Beadman will ride him, wherever. He loves the horse, although he did have cross words for him when he would not go into the winner's stall in the mounting yard.

The gruff tone was soon gone, replaced with a kiss after dismounting. Beadman told Hawkes: ``I was never worried. He tries, mate . . . he's the real deal."

Beadman was breathless. Lonhro was not puffing as much. There are more wins before he gets down to a stallion's task.