Cover image courtesy of Sportpix
At the turn of this century, the Australian racing scene was blessed with a rare set of thoroughbreds whose names will be honoured for a long time. Sometimes, history just works out like that, and the years 1997 to around 2005 were such.
There was Sunline (NZ), the dazzling daughter of Desert Sun (GB) who carved through Australasian racing for three seasons, and there were horses like Might And Power (NZ) (Zabeel {NZ}), Fields Of Omagh (Rubiton), El Segundo (NZ) (Pins), Elvstroem and Makybe Diva (GB) (Desert King {Ire}).
Northerly at Caulfield | Image courtesy of Sportpix
In the middle was an initially awkward gelding, bred by Oakland Park Stud in Western Australia and called Northerly. He was born without a heartbeat, was crooked in conformation and, according to Oakland studmaster Neville Duncan, “he wasn’t that flash to look at”.
But as history has proved time and again, first impressions are deceiving in the business of breeding thoroughbreds because Northerly stormed Australian racing like few others.
He won over $9 million in prizemoney from 2000 until 2004, in races like the Cox Plate twice, Caulfield Cup in 2002, Australian Cup in 2003, and nine Group 1 victories combined.
His tally of 16 total Group wins was unprecedented for a horse from Western Australia, and he tussled with the best, downing Sunline in the G2 Feehan S. and Cox Plate in 2001, and then triple Group 1 winner Defier (Dehere {USA}) in the same race the following year.
Watch: Northerly winning the 2001 Cox Plate
‘He fools you every time he races,’ wrote Les Carlyon of Northerly. ‘He has the body language of a loser and a heart as big as the Nullarbor. He invariably looks to be struggling, a shambles of a horse blundering around on memory while his jockey pumps and blusters. Then he gets going. One instant Northerly looks beaten, the next he looks unbeatable.'
They were brilliant words about the horse from the west coast. Northerly wasn’t a stylish thoroughbred and he wasn’t particularly correct. When he left racegoers breathless, it wasn’t because he was brilliance reincarnated. It was because his blood-and-guts style was so effective and, as his trainer Fred Kersley said, he didn’t need a race run to suit him.
“There was no talk of track bias, no discussion of good or bad fortune,” Kersley said. “He didn’t need luck to win because he made his own. He did it tough and never quit.”
“He (Northerly) didn’t need luck to win because he made his own. He did it tough and never quit.” - Fred Kersley
Northerly was a son of the broodmare North Bell (Bellwater {Fr}), and from only five foals on the ground, this extraordinary mare produced three Group winners. Northerly was a half-brother to the G3 VRC Chairman’s Club S. winner Northern Song (Rory’s Jester) and to the dual Group winner North Boy (Rory’s Jester), who was also a triple Listed winner.
These three horses were all racing at the same time, and it was an industry loss when their dam, North Bell, died in October 2002 while foaling a Flying Spur colt.
For Northerly, retirement in 2004 meant a good life back home at Oakland Park Stud, and the horse that was dubbed ‘the Fighting Tiger’ had close to eight years with the Duncans until colic in May 2012 spelled the end of him. He was put down on humane grounds, ending his life where it had begun in such dramatic fashion in 1996.
Neville Duncan and Northerly at home at Oakland Park Stud | Image courtesy of Oakland Park Stud
To this day, the Duncans pay regular tribute to the bumbling, awkward gelding that put them on the map, a horse that in the words of Paddy Payne ‘always looked the first one beaten but was always the last one standing’.
