Travel, timing and two chances – Brisbourne eyes Champagne prize

Five times in the space of six days, trainer Ben Brisbourne’s horse truck and floats will head in various directions north, south and west to seven different race meetings across two states.

It’s that willingness to travel from his Wangaratta base to find the right race that sums up expatriate Englishman Brisbourne’s approach to training, with placement a key plank of his success that has seen him establish himself as one of Victoria’s premier country stables.

Brisbourne was at Echuca on Thursday, with his runners also accepted and nominated for Mornington, Kilmore, Wagga, Swan Hill and Wodonga in the coming days, but he’d be forgiven if his focus was squarely on Randwick on Saturday.

The Champagne Stakes will provide Brisbourne with two shots at a Group 1 prize with the added residual value jackpot if either of his fillies can hit the board.

Proving himself to be as adept with two-year-olds and sprinters as he is with older horses and stayers, Brisbourne has VRC Sires’ Produce Stakes winner Grinzinger Heart and Fernhill Mile runner-up Salann tackling the $1 million Champagne, the last leg of the two-year-old Triple Crown.

Their differing preparations – Grinzinger Heart having not raced since her boilover Group 2 win on March 7 and Salann’s Group 1 attack on the quick back-up – also reveal the trainer’s considered methodology. 

Grinzinger Heart, who is raced by John Wheeler of Russian Camelot fame, has had two barrier trials since the Sires’, one at Echuca and the other more recent at Wagga in the clockwise direction.

“There’s nothing wrong with the form of the Sires’ (with Diameter winning the Fernhill two starts later),” Brisbourne told The Straight. 

“Post the race, we thought we’d take a different path in regards to this race. It was always the plan to come to this race and be the fresh horse on the scene again.

“The (two-year-olds) in Sydney could take each other on for a month or so and we just ticked over in a couple of trials.”

And her second placing in a Wagga trial could prove deceiving, with Grinzinger Heart showing dominant speed before being overhauled by last-start Albury Cup winner Bianco Vilano in the last 50 metres of a 1200m heat.

“It probably did her the world of good as well just as far as taking on those older open handicappers for 200 or 300 metres. It just took her off the bridle with that experience of (almost being like) race day pressure again,” he said.

“It will stand her in good stead this weekend.”

For her stablemate, there’s a degree of symmetry about Shamus Award filly Salann who backs up from an eye-catching second in the Listed Fernhill Handicap into the Champagne.

Salann races in Affinity Thoroughbreds’ cerise and purple silks, the same colours associated with Brisbourne’s best horse Suparazi, the recently retired sprinter who provided the trainer with his first Group 1 runner.

Suparazi, who banked $1.1 million for connections, bowed out after finishing unplaced at Canberra on Black Opal Stakes day last month after a 50-start career.

“It’s worked out well, actually. He was obviously a super horse for us, he won over a million dollars, and his best actual finishing position was second in a Group 3, and at her first start, she goes and runs second at Group 3 (Thoroughbred Breeders),” Brisbourne says of the changing of the guard for Affinity Thoroughbreds.

Despite being by a Cox Plate winner whose progeny are better-known to excel at three and older, rather than at two, her ability to race as an autumn two-year-old isn’t a shock to the trainer.

“She’s always been reasonably forward. I actually thought she’d be a sort of jump-and-run horse, more than a staying type of model, which she looks like she’s going to be,” he said. 

“But she’s an early (August) foal, so we’ve been to test her as a two-year-old.”

For those who have watched Brisbourne’s stable evolve from an Albury win in 2018 to where it is today shouldn’t be surprised.

“Our record with two-year-olds isn’t too bad. We seem to have a stakes-placed horse pop up every season, nearly,” Brisbourne says.

“It’s always hard to go to the sales with shallow pockets and buy the horses you want, so you’re relying on horses that get sent to us. 

“You’ve got to have 100 yearlings walking to your stable every year (to be regularly competing in two-year-old races). But at the minute, I don’t know what might happen for us. “If we can get a bit more success, then one day it might happen.”

Brisbourne is content spending time on the road, winning races at numerous tracks either side of the NSW-Victorian border, and it’s a business model that suits him.

“Obviously, we’re based out of Wangaratta, which is a good central point for the calibre of horse we’ve got at the moment,” Brisbourne says. 

“It doesn’t matter if you get on the freeway and turn right or left. There’s normally a suitable race within three or four hours.”

The extra three hours’ drive up the Hume would be just reward for Brisbourne if either filly was able to land a breakthrough Group 1 win.