There has never been a West Australian horse more admired for his courage than Northerly and the Group 1 race named in his honour will have added significance for the champion’s breeder and part-owner Neville Duncan, writes Warwick Barr.
For a horse born without a pulse, Northerly ran with a heart like no other thoroughbred in a golden era of Australian racetrack heroes.
He earned the moniker of “The Fighting Tiger” as his rivalry with New Zealand’s champion mare Sunline provided irresistible contests at the start of the century.
As a Railway Stakes winner in 2000, Northerly had nothing more to prove to a growing legion of West Australian fans.
When he won the 2001 Australian Cup at Flemington a few months later, WA parochialism was matched by an eastern states appreciation.
And when he returned to win a second Cox Plate in 2002 a week after carrying 58kg as topweight to claim the Caulfield Cup, a double not completed since 1967 and not since, legendary status was bestowed. He was assured of Hall of Fame recognition.
In between the first of his two Australian Cup victories and that Cox Plate triumph in 2002, Northerly compiled a sequence of wins in Melbourne that began with his defeat of Sunline in the 2001 Feehan Stakes at Moonee Valley and ended with the same result, albeit in controversy as he survived multiple protests, in Australasia’ weight-for-age championship almost six weeks later.
The Feehan signalled Northerly’s rise to greatness. Sunline was rarely chased down at the peak of her powers but somehow Northerly found a way under Damien Oliver.
Sunline established a clear advantage as she turned into the Moonee Valley straight with racecaller Bryan Martin observing: “Northerly under enormous pressure.”
It was a pivotal moment for Neville Duncan, who bred and part-owned Northerly.
The magnitude of that win earns pride of place on a wall in the home that sits on his Oakland Park Stud property in WA’s southwest region near Busselton.
“We've got one picture in the house of our horses winning races and it's Northerly winning the Feehan Stakes,” Duncan told The Straight.
“We don't look back normally. We don't collect photos, we don't collect trophies but it was such an iconic photo.
“We just look forward, but when I walk my paddocks, reflection is great.
“Whether it's Northerly or something that's happened in the past that makes the whole thing worthwhile, and he is as good as they get.”
Northerly’s courage in the Feehan became a hallmark of a career that will be remembered with the running of the Group 1 Northerly Stakes at Ascot on Saturday.
“Whether it's Northerly or something that's happened in the past that makes the whole thing worthwhile, and he is as good as they get.” - Neville Duncan
Appropriately, there will be a sentimental connection to the $1.5 million race for Duncan and his family through the richly talented mare Super Smink.
Duncan bred Super Smink’s dam Sminky Shorts, a daughter of Snitzel who injured herself in transit to the Gold Coast yearling sale.
“I brought her home and passed her on to my son Ben because she was one of those non-racing scenarios,” Duncan said.
Sminky Shorts is now part of Ben and Jo Duncan’s broodmare band that resides on the Forest View Farm they own not far from Oakland Park.
“Ben sent her to a horse (Super One) he thought might be worth a cross and it's come up trumps. So good luck to him,” Neville Duncan said.
“Ben’s doing pretty well on his own and in his own way, different from Dad. But it would be fitting if Super Smink can win.”
More than a decade since Northerly died after failing to recover from a colic attack, his legacy is an intrinsic part of WA racing - and Duncan’s venture into the commercial side of breeding.
His impact can still be found on the pedigree page with last week’s Group 1 Winterbottom Stakes winner Overpass a close descendant as a grandson of Northerly’s half-sister Boardwalk Bell.
“We sold Boardwalk Bell when she was a three-year-old,” Duncan said.
“She had already put her cards on the table … she was midweek (class) at best.
“But, you know, history says there are just as many half-sisters of good horses as there are Group 1 mares who do the job in the barn just as well as well-performed half or full siblings.
“Why is that? Nobody knows.”
The same could be said about Northerly. He had no right to be a champion.
Northerly was rejected as a yearling sale prospect because “they would have all put a line through him”. He was offset, narrow in the chest and held his head differently than most horses.
But Northerly always boxed out of division.
“He weighed 462 kilos the morning of the first Cox Plate and that’s what you call extremely light,” Duncan said.
“The first time he raced against Sunline she turned up about 100 kilos bigger than him and I’m thinking ‘why are we here’?”
But the fact that he turned out to be a true champion helped alter the course of Duncan’s destiny in thoroughbred racing.
“Northerly was a life-changer in terms of where I headed. I used to be a pharmacist and I went into breeding full-time and I threw my pharmaceutical licence in to make it difficult to subsidise my pursuit,” he said.
“That's what a lot of people do and that's their decision but I don't think it's the reality of being successful if you do that.
“So we cut all our ties and the last 20 years we've survived on horses.”
There will be no more fitting continuation of the wisdom of that decision if Super Smink becomes the newest member of Australia’s Group 1 club in the last elite-level race of the calendar year.
