Cover image courtesy of Sportpix
It’s been 31 years since Vo Rogue competed in silks, but the last time he did, he was fourth to Rough Habit (NZ) (Roughcast {USA}). On occasions before that, he was placed behind Better Loosen Up and Planet Ruler, and so it went for much of this gelding’s gallant life.
A quick glance through Vo Rogue’s 83 lifetime starts reveals names like Super Impose (NZ) (Imposing), Special (Habituate {Ire}), Empire Rose (NZ) (Sir Tristram {Ire}), Bonecrusher (NZ) (Pag Asa) and Rubiton. In other words, it was a halcyon era and Vo Rogue, underdog that he was, was right among it.
A painting of Placid Ark, Vo Rogue and Rubiton by artist Barbel Georgi
By numbers, he won 26 races and $3.1 million in prizemoney. He won stakes from 1987 through to 1990, and they were races like the William Reid S., Alister Clark S., Turnbull S. and CF Orr S. (three times). He twice won the G1 Australian Cup and his 16 Group wins occurred in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth.
However, these are facts that hide very good detail.
Vo Rogue was a free-wheeling, loose-moving boy racer, a horse that often set up 20-length leads in his races. He begged his opposition to chase him, and sometimes they got the better of him. Many times, they didn’t.
Vo Rogue | Image courtesy of Sportpix
Vo Rogue lost the 1987 Cox Plate after laying down an impossible lead, and Rubiton had to break a course record to win the race. The same year, Vo Rogue broke a Moonee Valley track record when winning the G2 Alister Clark S., and he set records at Flemington and Caulfield racetracks.
In any other era, he might have been the all-time star, but as he was, Vo Rogue was inducted into the Queensland Racing Hall of Fame in 2004, and the Australian Racing Hall of Fame in 2019.
He was bred by Lance Merchant in 1983 in the country town of Yass and, with fairly obscure breeding, he was sold for $5000 as a weanling to Queenslanders John Murray and Jeff Perry. The pair had raced Vo Rogue’s half-brother, Rode Rouge (Devorant), and they gave the horse to Brisbane trainer Victory Robert (Vic) Rail.
Connections with Vo Rogue after his second consecutive win in the G1 Australian Cup in 1990 | Image courtesy of Sportpix
Vic Rail had been born on the last day of World War II in 1945. When Vo Rogue came along in 1984, Rail had scraped out his living as a jockey, trainer, track rider and farrier. Rail was a ‘knockabout, craggy-faced’ old character that had almost slipped through the cracks, but Vo Rogue, much of the time in partnership with jockey Cyril Small, thrust the trainer into everyday fame.
He was fined by Queensland stewards for riding the horse in thongs and fined for working him unshod. Largely, these stories became part of the delightful Vo Rogue folklore.
In 1991, Vo Rogue’s form began to slide and he retired from racing as an 8-year-old in May. He spent much of his life thereafter on Cyril Small’s seven acres in the Tallebudgera Valley, a skip from the Gold Coast. He died there at the age of 28 in May 2012.
Vo Rogue and Vic Rail | Image courtesy of Scone Vet Dynasty
For Rail, the end wasn’t so peaceful. The Brisbane trainer brought two horses into his yard in September 1994, both showing signs of respiratory illness. Within a week, 14 horses were dead and Rail was admitted to a Brisbane hospital, where he died on September 27, 1994.
He was the first confirmed case in the world of fatal Hendra virus.
