Goldrush Guru will be trying to emulate the 1998 Australian Guineas win of relation Gold Guru when the Victoria Derby winner continues his autumn campaign at Flemington.
For racehorses that transcend racing, they erect statues.
Gold Guru isn’t immortalised in bronze, nor will he be remembered in a broader conversation about the all-time greats of the Australian turf.
But in a prosperous window during a 1998 autumn campaign in Melbourne and Sydney, Gold Guru did more than roll with the best.
Gold Guru set Leon Macdonald - then a trainer with a growing reputation in Adelaide but one without the national profile that a good horse can bring - on his way.
In the space of seven glorious and unforgettable weeks for Macdonald and his emerging owner Harry Perks, Gold Guru won four races.
The haul included the Australian Guineas in Melbourne and the Ranvet Stakes and AJC Derby in Sydney.
He defeated Might And Power in the Ranvet before that season’s Caulfield Cup-Melbourne winner reversed that defeat in the Tancred Stakes.
A week later in the Derby, Gold Guru conquered Tie The Knot and Macdonald had his breakthrough horse.
Macdonald didn’t build a statue of Gold Guru but he did open an interstate operation based on his feats and his intent to keep pace with Australian racing’s biggest names.
He wanted to give his stable star and other horses like no-nonsense two-time Toorak Handicap winner Umrum and Dilly Dally, successful in the 2004 TJ Smith Stakes, every chance to stay competitive at the highest level.
Gold Guru died this week at the ripe old age of 31 after living his best life in a retirement he thoroughly deserved at Mill Park Stud in South Australia.
But his influence and legacy on one of Adelaide’s premier stables is as strong as ever as Macdonald’s son-in-law Andrew Gluyas prepares the Victoria Derby winner Goldrush Guru for the Australian Guineas at Flemington on Saturday.
“When Gold Guru was around it was a bit before my time at the stable,” Gluyas told The Straight.
“He raced against some pretty mighty opposition like Tie The Knot, Might and Power. He was a fantastic horse for the connections.
“It’s safe to say that he really helped set people up way back then.
“That was a period when Leon had a few good horses that were going well all at the same time.
“For Leon, it sort of triggered the start of what then became the Caulfield stable in Melbourne.”
Macdonald closed his Caulfield yard not long after Gold Guru and Umrum’s racing days were finished.
But instead of slowing the stable’s momentum, the opposite happened.
Rebel Raider shocked the racing world in winning the 2008 Victoria Derby with stable jockey Clare Lindop creating her own piece of history.
And the Group 1s kept coming with Southern Speed winning a Caulfield Cup not long after Macdonald elevated Gluyas to the position of co-trainer.
Go Indy Go gave the partnership more Group 1 success with her Champagne Stakes victory in Sydney in 2014.
Throughout, Perks, an accountant with an appetite for breeding quality bloodstock matched by a resume that is the envy of most, has been a constant in the evolution of the Morphettville stable.
Macdonald retired at the end of the 2022/23 season, leaving the keys to the stable in the safe hands of Gluyas who first walked through the French Cotton Lodge two decades earlier.
Perks is a central figure in Goldrush Guru’s rise as a benchmark stayer of Australia’s three-year-old ranks, breeding from a family that shows no sign of losing its potency.
Goldrush Guru counts Gold Guru as a distant relation, thanks to the Don’t Say Halo mare Proud Halo.
Proud Halo, the mother of Gold Guru, is Goldrush Guru’s great granddam.
A successful racehorse, 'Goldie' found a new purpose at the farm as a trusted babysitter after his retirement from the track. He spent his final years in comfortable surroundings, cherished by all at Mill Park, who will miss him deeply.
— Mill Park Stud (@millparkstud) February 25, 2025
RIP Gold Guru, 22.10.94 - 24.02.25 pic.twitter.com/tdXAacynTo
It is a pedigree page overflowing with horses who are ingrained in the history of a stable that completed a seamless transition after Gluyas took over when his father-in-law stepped down.
“To win the Victoria Derby with Goldrush Guru in the spring was a great moment for us considering the association we’ve had with Harry since the 1990s,” Gluyas said.
Goldrush Guru is working his way into a campaign in exactly the manner Gluyas wants him to, knowing the ATC Australian Derby is five weeks ago.
“We didn’t get a chance to run him at a mile in the spring so I’m pretty excited to get him to Flemington over the distance on Saturday,” Gluyas said.
Ironically, one of the biggest dangers to Goldrush Guru emulating Gold Guru is likely to come from a horse with crossover ownership interests.
Perks is at the helm of a syndicate behind the emergence of Point And Shoot, trained by Bjorn Baker in Sydney.
Point And Shoot, a son of Blue Point, has marched through the classes in such an emphatic fashion that he is challenging for favouritism to complete a winning transition to stakes racing.
