At a time when so many throughout the community are doing it tough, one locally-based horse is providing race fans across the south east with plenty of reason to smile, as sports editor RUSSELL BENNETT explains…
It’s only fitting that Troy Wilson feels blessed to own his four-year-old mare, ‘Bless Her’.
She’s only raced nine times, but has already won more than $230,000 in prize-money and has saluted in each of her past five starts – including the third race on Saturday’s card at Caulfield.
Yet due to the on-course restrictions around racing during the Covid-19 pandemic, Wilson – the owner of Pakenham-based plastering business, TW Plastering – has missed out on seeing each of those five wins in the flesh.
Normally, when he and his wife Madeleine have been involved with city winners, they’ve been able to soak up all the on-course atmosphere – just as they did with their local cult hero, and multiple Group 1 winner, Kenedna.
While Wilson admits it’s disappointing not having witnessed Bless Her win in person just yet, the popular figure throughout the local community said it’s important to keep some valuable perspective in mind.
“We’ve been celebrating at home by ourselves with the kids, and that’s about it,” he said.
“We’re probably looking at the (next) Autumn at least before we’ll be able to get there and watch her, but what I love is that on Saturday my phone went berserk with people congratulating us on the win, and it’s great that – in such tough times – she’s providing such joy to so many people.
“A lot of people are really flat, so if our little racehorse can give people a bit of a spark, how good is that? Thank god we’ve got the horses and the footy at the moment.”
Not bad for a horse Wilson picked up at the sales for $40,000 – particularly one that her eventual trainer, and Wilson’s great mate, Shea Eden couldn’t see the magic in straight away.
“Madeleine and I had decided we were going to buy a horse, ourselves, and when we went to the sales I went up to Shea – because I’m the plasterer and he’s the trainer – to ask what he thought,” Wilson said with a laugh.
“He basically gave me doughnuts – he said she was too small, and he told me ‘even you’re bloody taller than her!’.”
And given Wilson is smaller in stature, that’s saying something.
At the sales, he was bidding against champion trainer (the trainer of Kenedna, as luck would have it) Ciaron Maher, who chose not to match his bid.
“I think I got her cheap because she wasn’t very big, but I know after Kenedna that size isn’t everything,” Wilson said, again with a chuckle.
“That’s just the way it turned out. I told Shea and we went from there. He said he’d have a go with her, and here we are nine starts in with five straight wins to her name.”
The Wilsons own Bless Her with Kilcunda Bass Football Netball Club president Eden and his wife Miranda. It really is their labour of love.
Wilson said he spoke with Maher just the other day about Bless Her, and asked him if he remembered that fateful day when they were bidding against each other.
“I rang him and said ‘you won’t remember this, but you actually bid on this horse – I don’t know why you didn’t keep going’,” Wilson added.
Well, after her first start at Wangaratta, he could have been forgiven for thinking he’d worked out why.
“We went there thinking we were going for a kill,” Wilson explained.
“Shea and I, and his foreman Jamie, drove up with the horse and had a really good bet, but luck didn’t go our way.
“She got bumped on the turn and ended up running third. Well, from Wangaratta, four hours back home with a float on… that was a bloody long drive with our tails between our legs.
“We had a really good go on her that day, put it that way. I was thinking I’d go there and get my purchase price back first start!”
In fact, Bless Her had no luck in any of her first four starts… until the start of her current streak.
“I think she ran third, second, fourth, second, and she was just so green,” Wilson said.
“You could tell she had no idea, so we tipped her out and she came home to my place and spent three months with us, and now she’s came back in and gone five straight.”
Wilson – who features regularly in the Gazette’s ‘Tip-Stars’ footy tipping section – plays cricket at, and sponsors, the Pakenham Cricket Club.
He’s also one of the more than 100 keen punters involved in Phil ‘Mitsu’ Anning’s weekly race tipping competition.
And it’s fair to say the vast majority of those would keep an eye out for Bless Her whenever she’s due to run.
“A lot of people are really flat, so if our little racehorse can give people a bit of a spark, how good is that?” – Troy Wilson.
“I don’t know how many times on Friday and Saturday I was texted by people asking how she was going to go,” Wilson said.
“I ended up just sending back the same message to everyone, just along the lines of: ‘look, very even race, she’s going super well, but up in class – hoping she can run well, she can win but it’s a tough race’.
“Then she came out the way she did on Saturday, and that was outstanding.
“We’re only a small family, so to have all our friends enjoying her as well, it’s actually quite rewarding, and it’s great for Shea too.
“He went through a tough time for a while there, but he’s come back and he’s having a really good run at the moment and he’s a ripping bloke as well.”
Bless Her is now set to give Eden another crack at the Group 3 Cockram Stakes at Caulfield at the end of the month. He won it back in 2016 with Ocean Embers, and Wilson gives Bless Her a genuine chance to do the same.
“She had a good break, she spelled really well at our place, and I think she’s just matured, and she’s got a genuine will to win,” he said.
“We’re just enjoying the ride at the minute.
“It was a massive buzz winning a couple of Group 1 races with Kenedna and to have this happen – this is right up there.
“We really are blessed to have her.”
Wilson has raced horses for nearly 25 years – his first winner being Landy, which be brought out of retirement to win at Woolamai in the late 1990s.
He’s living proof of what persistence can achieve.
“We pulled off the big plunge, took him to Woolamai, and he won – and this is what got me going in the game,” Wilson said.
“We owned him with ‘Hamsy’ (Graham McCraw) and ‘Gruger’ (Greg Hogben) from the cricket club.
“That was back in 1998, and he was about 10-years-old at the time, won by three lengths, and smashed the bookies.
“Madeleine was crying over us winning a race at the Woolamai picnics.
“Then you look 20 years later and we’re at Royal Randwick with Kenedna winning a Group 1 on the same day as Winx has her final start.
“We just thought this doesn’t happen to us, but then it did, and then we won the Doomben Cup and now we’ve got this filly we own ourselves and she stays at our own house, and she’s won five in a row.
“It’s a real buzz.”
