How The Eureka took harness racing to the world
Let's put aside that they already mangled the town name. What was a land grant called Manangle in 1806, would become Menangle – an Aboriginal word for a place of swamps and lagoons – but on Saturday night, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, Club Menangle was the centre of the harness racing world.
You could grumpily paraphrase an albeit lovely line from legendary American sportswriter Jim Murray – writing about a small town (Spokane) at the time (and thinking Menangle) – "There is nothing to do after 10 o'clock. In the morning!"
But not last Saturday and especially Saturday night, its population at the last census listed as 1150, yet near on 20,000 revelled under drone lit skies, rock concerts, but most importantly, with the sport's real stars in action.
So just when you thought the best two things to come out of Menangle were The Rubens (OK, you might have to google them) and James Tedesco (you probably know he's a Rugby League superstar), came the birth of The Eureka, pulled off with some bubbling engagement and an eye to a real industry rebirthing.
Emma Stewart and Tyson Linke win TAB Eureka winner Encipher Picture: Club Menangle
All right, it was originally going to be called another name when Harness Racing Australia carbon-copied the slot style success of thoroughbred racing's The Everest, but wiser heads in head office thought attaching the name "The Heist" to its main sponsor TAB probably wasn't the look it was after.
And in a dare I say ‘punningly' Eureka moment, that is what was spawned, the TAB Eureka, billed as the richest harness event in the world of some $2.1m, no stockades, no rebellions needed, just 18 months from birth to maturity but delivering so much more for the sport, not just the race, but an event that shone local and global eyes to find out what was going on out there.
OK, the closest the trots have gotten to ghosts of a household era's past was left among Menangle's brilliantly curated Museum which runs under the grandstand, but perhaps you'd heard, watched or read a little of Catch A Wave, Speak The Truth, even the mystery of wonder horse gone missing Captain Ravishing, in the lead-up to Saturday night.
Even America had. Like Australian superstar and now US based Brett Pelling, spruiking the race that was run at 6.45am on their Saturday morning talking to the Meadowlands News.
"This Eureka thing is good," he said. "I mean this Eureka thing was basically created to stop the world, that's why they are doing it.
"They have major companies on board promoting racing events, but they make it part of the community in a good way. It's a place to go, people go there, they dress up and go. They just do a fabulous job."
And that they did, the usual fashions on the field, Birds Of Tokyo (that's the band, Lanterns got a big run), Ricki-Lee Coulter sang the national anthem (in what looked like her dressing gown against the cold), league star Benji Marshall was the ambassador and much loved out west.
Drones and their show were amazing transforming into name, sponsorship and racehorse colours, all impressive, you could wander among extensive food yards, every corporate or reserved options sold out, and a pre-race trip to the stabling barn was like visiting the Royal Show for animals, kids and family patting the stars without intervention from the green coats.
So I am (with a declared vested interest) in there looking at the sole mare Encipher, bred on South Australia's Copper Coast on the Yorke Peninsula, by the Kadina based Linke family, Ross, a former policeman and son Tyson, an IT executive, carrying on the family hobbyist enthusiasm as breeders, trainers and owners, while mum, former secretary of the now defunct Kadina harness racing club, still feeds the broodmares like household pets.
"We are that far from anything, we have to do everything ourselves," said Linke, who claims Pelling as his hero by the way, but back behind the computer today and still wondering if Saturday night really happened.
It did Tyson, who couldn't watch and wandered through the teeming crown to the home turn just as Encipher and Luke McCarthy were getting into the battle, one they won at $34 odds and shared a $1m payday with enthusiastic slot holders Aaron Bain and Summit Bloodstock, who at one stage had EFC hero Charles "DoBronxs" Oliveira, he apparently of most submissions in UFC history, coming as brand ambassador. (Next year!)
"She has changed our lives, yes she has won us a lot of money, but it has never been about that," Linke said.
"It never is in our sport, we are always on the road, travelling, be it Sunday morning trials, or 250km round trips to get mares scanned, there has been plenty of sacrifices, but for us it is about family and she has brought us even closer together, and well before Saturday night."
Success as a three-year-old and a previous prizemoney bank of $580,000 had allowed Tyson his dream to shout his parents and sister Tara Shae a six week European holiday – he did, ("but dad chickened out") – while he has upgraded his house for partner Jessie Anne and their young son but still locked into Kadina.
And there was no pretensions in getting to Menangle for the Eureka moment, even with Ross staying home with mares in foal and Jessie Anne, playing mum.
"We got the train out," Linke said. "Two trains to get to Campbelltown."
It took longer to get home – carrying the enormous Eureka trophies on the train, landing back in Sydney around 1.45am, still dressed up and with no chance of changing transporting arrangement – "we wanted to keep it humble," said Linke without a boast.
"When the Eureka was first launched I was a little sceptical, I believed in the concept but not the financial structure, " he said, that included a stallion tax on breeders, which he paid as he reached out to send his mare Our Cavort to sire sensation Captaintreacherous (who also had Captain Ravishing, Catch A Waver and Captain Hammerhead in the race.)
"As breeders it is a hard game already, especially from South Australia, the margins for reward just aren't there, I had to save up to get into Captaintreacherous and about the best return in our game may be $200,000, it's just so hard to be commercial, and then invest blindly in something like this.
"But they pulled it off, the eyes and ears were on the sport, finally some mainstream media, a but like the atmosphere they get at the New Zealand Cup, marketing to that next generation, it was a fantastic build-up.
"I am as proud that we bought some awareness back to South Australia, the morale has been low there for some time, so to have a horse racing at this level, having been born and bred in SA meant a lot to us.
"Now we just need to work on how to build off it."
The result was perfect (excepting for the punters maybe) but for the race given the Bain/Summit Bloodstock slot holding.
Jamie Durnberger-Smith, partner with Jake Webster in Summit, had chased and signed off the Oliviera involvement until a UFC title fight in Abu Dhabi came up. They sold micro slots for $50 (for 0.015%) to not only get fans involved and Jamie, brother to horse trainer Lee Curtis's wife Cherie, in his blue velour jacket at Menangle on Saturday could have been expected to croon alongside the Birds of Tokyo as smoke a cigar in the winning owner's room.
As for Encipher: "we got to spend some time with her after the race," said Linke.
"That was special, she's been in the retention barn at Menangle so not much chance to see her and give her a pat," Linke said.
"But I'm glad I got rid of her to Emma (Stewart) and Clayton (Tonkin), she was too good for us and I'd have only stuffed it up, they are the total professionals, they treat her as family, so that's enough for us."
As for the name, well she is by Captaintreacherous and Linke was finishing a degree at University at the time where cryptography came up, spies, coding, he thought Decipher, ended up with Encipher (convert a coded text).
And the inaugural Eureka winner. Code for the future of harness racing in the short term.
