Latest news with #Knight'sChoice
News.com.au
12 hours ago
- Sport
- News.com.au
Comment: Why Melbourne Cup champion Knight's Choice is no certainty to win Queensland Horse of the Year honour
Queensland produced its first Melbourne Cup winner but there is a chance that not even the history-making feat of Knight's Choice will be enough to clinch Horse of the Year honours in his own state. When $91 bolter Knights's Choice stunned the world to become the first Queensland-trained Melbourne Cup winner last November, he would have been hot favourite to become the Queensland Horse of the Year. The credentials of Knight's Choice may still be impossible to ignore – it is the Melbourne Cup after all. But Antino says hello. Given the Horse of the Year is for the 2024/25 racing season, Antino's astonishing 6½-length Group 1 Toorak Handicap romp last spring, with an out-of-the-box ride from Blake Shinn, counts towards voting. So too do Antino's two Group 1 placings in the Melbourne spring. And recent in our minds is Antino's devastating Group 1 Doomben Cup romp which was so authoritative that Tony Gollan's star is now the $6 second pick for the Cox Plate and behind only Via Sistina in betting markets. What did we just witness?! 🤯 KNIGHT'S CHOICE holds on to win the 2024 Lexus Melbourne Cup! 🎥 @wwos | #MelbourneCup | #MelbCupCarnival — Victoria Racing Club (@FlemingtonVRC) November 5, 2024 • Antino also conjured an incredible Hollindale Stakes triumph on a bog track which didn't seem to worry him or Shinn. The other horse to consider in the Queensland Horse of the Year race is the new kid on the block Cool Archie. It is entirely possible young colt Cool Archie could win Australian 2YO Horse of the Year, yet finish third in the Queensland Horse of the Year title. Chris Munce was scratching his head to try to think of the last Australian two-year-old to win five races in a row, culminating in a Group 1 triumph. Cool Archie WINS the G1 J.J. Atkins! ðŸ�† @munceracing — SKY Racing (@SkyRacingAU) June 14, 2025 • 'He could be anything': Munce hot on Cool Archie's future That's exactly what his JJ Atkins champion did and he has been unbeaten this campaign on wet and dry tracks and a variety of distances from 1000m to stretching to the 1600m of the JJ. Clearly, he is a freak. Even if you believe the Melbourne Cup winner should win Queensland Horse of the Year, you must at least concede it's at least a fascinating topic of conversation. The voting is done by a panel of about 25 industry stakeholders and they will have a nice problem on their hands when they sit down to vote in the coming months, with the award to be announced later this year. Antino is an absolute star! The Queenslander dominates the Doomben Cup for @tonygollan ðŸ�† @blake_shinn — SKY Racing (@SkyRacingAU) May 24, 2025 In some previous years, it has been a barren wasteland for Queensland horses in terms of Group 1 wins. But this season has been an outstanding one for horses from the Sunshine State performing at the elite level. Sometimes, Horse of the Year honours nationally and in various states can be a one-horse race and largely a bit of a snore-fest. But not this year in Queensland.
News.com.au
13-05-2025
- Sport
- News.com.au
Melbourne Cup hero Knight's Choice likely to miss Queensland winter carnival
Melbourne Cup hero Knight's Choice will almost certainly miss the Queensland winter carnival. Co-trainer John Symons revealed that south-east Queensland's ongoing big wet meant the Cup winner would most likely not compete at his home carnival. Races like the Group 1 Doomben Cup and $1.2m Q22 had been on the agenda for the Queensland stayer, who shocked the world when scoring the Melbourne Cup as a $91 chance last November. Autumn plans to contest the All-Star Mile were derailed by a minor injury and now, the likelihood is that Knight's Choice won't be seen until the spring carnival. 'Our thinking at the moment is that we will wait for spring with him, there is a strong chance you won't see him in the winter carnival,' Symons, who trains with his wife Sheila Laxon, said. 'He's just hopeless on wet tracks and that's why his form was so bad in Melbourne last spring up until his last two runs. He just couldn't get a dry track. • "Bloody oath": Warren out to spoil Schwarz's 10,000 farewell party 'It's not upsetting our plans, the wet weather is just a bit of a pain in the arse. 'It does depend on what the weather is going to do in the next few weeks, but it's just been so wet. 'I think we will just take him back to Melbourne. 'We will set a plan going through the races down there, probably weight-wise he would be better off doing that anyway.' Symons said the injury setback in autumn wasn't major, but it was enough to scrap autumn plans. 'There were no ongoing issues. He clipped the inside of his fetlock with his other leg and had a bleed in the joint,' Symons said. 'We thought he would get it over easily, but at the same time he squashed a little ligament at the back of his fetlock joint. 'It all just got a bit inflamed, so we just wanted to let it settle down.'
Sydney Morning Herald
01-05-2025
- Business
- Sydney Morning Herald
New twist in trainers' fight for Melbourne Cup cash
Symons and Laxons, who are registered and licensed to train in Queensland, raced three horses – Knight's Choice, Mission of Love and Winsome Star – in Victoria between September 14 and November 9 last year. Between them, their runners amassed $472,389.28 in prizemoney across eight different race days, the lion's share coming from winning the Melbourne Cup. The trainers claim their earnings were due to be paid no later than December 16. They say they made further demands for the money on December 20 and April 1 this year. This masthead reported in February that Racing Victoria said it had paid the prizemoney into an account registered with them for Laxon and Symons – an account named Esprit Racing. Loading But, according to Laxon, the pair had not been connected to that account since 2014 when they were last registered as trainers in Victoria. The writ says Symons and Laxon applied to Racing Australia on September 14 last year for a 'visiting training licence' to operate in Victoria during the spring carnival. The writ says Racing Australia passed on the request to Racing Victoria and then later told the trainers that the licence had been granted. The $472,389.28 paid by Racing Victoria in to the Esprit Racing account has still not resurfaced. Esprit Racing was sent into liquidation just two months after it received the trainers' Cup cash. It had one director, Judith Sutcliffe, 82, from Tarneit at the time of its collapse, according to the company records filed with the corporate regulator. Symons told this masthead in February that Sutcliffe was the mother of accountant Michael Kirby, who, according to company records, was listed as Esprit's accountant. Kirby was the original director of Esprit Racing, a company that operated stables and employed Symons and Laxon as trainers between 2016 and 2023. Kirby provided a personal 'financial guarantee' for the trainers, who were declared bankrupt in 2014, to be licensed in Queensland on the condition they work 'for training purposes only and will not be involved in the finance aspect of the business'. Kirby declined to comment when contacted in February, directing this masthead to Esprit's liquidator. 'It's got nothing to do with me, talk to the company,' he said. This masthead asked Kirby specifically whether Judith Sutcliffe was his mother or another relative, and whether he knew how she had decided to appoint Jirsch Sutherland as a liquidator. He did not respond to those questions. Kirby and Symons bought last year's Melbourne Cup winner Knight's Choice for $85,000 at the 2021 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale before selling the horse to current owners Cameron Bain and Richard and Kaye Waldron. Symons told this masthead in February they parted ways with Esprit Racing in 2023 because they alleged that the company was not paying staff and the trainers 'were getting a bad name because of it'.
The Age
01-05-2025
- Business
- The Age
New twist in trainers' fight for Melbourne Cup cash
Symons and Laxons, who are registered and licensed to train in Queensland, raced three horses – Knight's Choice, Mission of Love and Winsome Star – in Victoria between September 14 and November 9 last year. Between them, their runners amassed $472,389.28 in prizemoney across eight different race days, the lion's share coming from winning the Melbourne Cup. The trainers claim their earnings were due to be paid no later than December 16. They say they made further demands for the money on December 20 and April 1 this year. This masthead reported in February that Racing Victoria said it had paid the prizemoney into an account registered with them for Laxon and Symons – an account named Esprit Racing. Loading But, according to Laxon, the pair had not been connected to that account since 2014 when they were last registered as trainers in Victoria. The writ says Symons and Laxon applied to Racing Australia on September 14 last year for a 'visiting training licence' to operate in Victoria during the spring carnival. The writ says Racing Australia passed on the request to Racing Victoria and then later told the trainers that the licence had been granted. The $472,389.28 paid by Racing Victoria in to the Esprit Racing account has still not resurfaced. Esprit Racing was sent into liquidation just two months after it received the trainers' Cup cash. It had one director, Judith Sutcliffe, 82, from Tarneit at the time of its collapse, according to the company records filed with the corporate regulator. Symons told this masthead in February that Sutcliffe was the mother of accountant Michael Kirby, who, according to company records, was listed as Esprit's accountant. Kirby was the original director of Esprit Racing, a company that operated stables and employed Symons and Laxon as trainers between 2016 and 2023. Kirby provided a personal 'financial guarantee' for the trainers, who were declared bankrupt in 2014, to be licensed in Queensland on the condition they work 'for training purposes only and will not be involved in the finance aspect of the business'. Kirby declined to comment when contacted in February, directing this masthead to Esprit's liquidator. 'It's got nothing to do with me, talk to the company,' he said. This masthead asked Kirby specifically whether Judith Sutcliffe was his mother or another relative, and whether he knew how she had decided to appoint Jirsch Sutherland as a liquidator. He did not respond to those questions. Kirby and Symons bought last year's Melbourne Cup winner Knight's Choice for $85,000 at the 2021 Magic Millions Gold Coast Yearling Sale before selling the horse to current owners Cameron Bain and Richard and Kaye Waldron. Symons told this masthead in February they parted ways with Esprit Racing in 2023 because they alleged that the company was not paying staff and the trainers 'were getting a bad name because of it'.
