Kranji-based Australian trainer Daniel Meagher walked away from the last day of the Magic Millions Gold Coast 2YOs In Training Sale in October with his shopping cart full and his pockets a little lighter.
Just as the former Brisbane-based trainer was taking another look at his travel details for the flight back to Singapore, his phone rang.
One of his good racing mates told him about a spinoff sale that was about to take place straight after the main proper – a little like those Tic Tac mints you don’t really need but can still grab at the supermarket checkouts. 38 tried horses were up for sale at the Gold Coast Spring Racehorse Sale, among them 14 Godolphins.
Meagher smiled. Godolphins! He would have to sell back one or two of the five colts (by Arlington, Denman, O’Lonhro, Myboycharlie and Captain Sonador) he just bought for around A$300,000, and even his air-ticket to buy one, and then swim home.
It would have been a far cushier option to go home to his mum’s roast lamb, but on a fit of impulse, Meagher, grabbed the catalogue and went straight back inside the Bundall complex.
He eventually came home with a sixth horse – a horse raced by the Boys in Blue, and for a song! Lot 419, then known as Switchback, a three-year-old by Hard Spun, was renamed Mikcaipho and will have his Kranji debut in the penultimate race on Sunday.
“My mate is a good friend of David Charles’, who is assistant to Godolphin’s trainer in Australia, John O’Shea, and he told me about that supplementary sale on the last day,” said Meagher.
“He told me there were 14 Godolphin raced horses on the list, which I thought was quite unusual as they usually sell their horses in a private sale.
“I decided to check it out and was quite impressed with how it was so professionally done. The catalogue said how they did at trackwork and they also said what they thought of them, just honest upfront feedback.
“I narrowed them down to four horses. Three were okay and the last one passed the vet test and was really clear – it was Mikcaipho.
“Even then, I thought it would be beyond my means as he was well bred and won a race from two starts. I was prepared to go up to $80,000 tops, but I was very surprised the bidding went up by $1,000 and I eventually got him for $30,000, which I thought was very cheap.
“Mark Newnham, the former Sydney jockey and now a trainer in his own right, bought one from Godolphin last year and he’s already won a race. His name is Careless.”
Meagher, who owns Mikcaipho with wife Sabrina, was not expecting fireworks first-up in the $60,000 Class 4 race over 1100m from the one-time winner in a 1216m race at Moe under Craig Williams, but hoped he would eventually furnish into a useful sort.
“He’s a nice athletic sort, but he’s still very new. He doesn’t know a lot of things,” said Meagher.
“He had three trials including a blinker test at his last in which he ran third. I will leave them out at his first run as he was very nervous with the blinkers and did a few things wrong, not quite the effect I wanted, though one day, he may need it.
“He just needs to be raced and learn what racing is all about at this stage. He will have to get used to the crowd and the atmosphere.”
Mikcaipho will be ridden by Meagher’s regular jockey Danny Beasley and will carry Meagher’s red and black stars silks, which will only be carried around for the second time after Natural Impulse, one of his first winners at his first season last year.
