It’s probably no surprise for a retired racehorse once described as a “fat elephant” by Emirates Melbourne Cup-winning trainer Gai Waterhouse to be enjoying a second career as a show horse.
But 12-year-old gelding Southwestone may yet prove the champion he was bred to be, albeit in a different career from that which his original connections – that included Waterhouse and revered thoroughbred breeder David Haines – envisaged.
The blueblood gelding, a son of Group 1 VRC Oaks winner Kensington Palace, will line up for South Australian rider Alexandra Growden in tomorrow night’s Off the Track National Show Horse Championship sponsored by Godolphin.
Growden has owned and campaigned Southwestone for more than three years and said victory in the unique thoroughbred-only event would give the gelding the biggest win of his new career and would supersede any of his six winless performances on the racetrack.
“I bought him from a girl called Brooke Wilkins in August 2013 and she had kept his racing name as his show name because she really liked it,” Growden said.
“It all happened pretty quickly after I found him on Facebook in a Show Horses group.
“I was on the phone to Brooke that night getting more information about him and that’s when she told me that he was initially trained by Gai Waterhouse.”
Trained by Waterhouse as a young horse before stints in the stables of Adam Spitzer and Toby Edmonds, Southwestone finished his racing career in the care of Kembla Grange horseman James Ponsonby.
While he displayed some talent as a three-year-old, he was beaten by a collective 90 lengths in his final two starts and was retired in late 2010, becoming the 10th progeny of Kensington Palace to leave the racetrack winless.
But as Growden explains, Southwestone has relished his transition into a second career, particularly one in the show ring that requires him to lick the feed bin clean each day.
“Gai mentioned him once in a blog that she wrote and he was referred to as a fat elephant which we thought was pretty funny because he is good on the tooth,” she said.
“He is looking pretty good now, he’s not fat as such, but we joke about him being tubby.
“He is a really nice natured thoroughbred and really easy to do anything with.
“He needs little work and he hardly gets ridden outside of the classes he competes in at the shows we take him to because he just doesn’t need to be worked down like some other horses.”
Growden and Southwestone are one of eight combinations contesting Saturday’s $4000 event, which has attracted some of the best-performed thoroughbred show horses from across the country.
To be staged on the indoor arena at the Werribee National Equestrian Centre, combinations will work in a group on a circle before each performing a short freestyle workout, to be judged by a panel including renowned bloodstock auctioneer Peter Heagney and renowned show horse identity Tammy Notman.
More information about the Off the Track National Show Horse Championship is available here.