What has felt like the longest week of Joe Pride’s life has also turned out to be the most momentous.
Pride went into Saturday’s $20 million The Everest (1200m) at Randwick with the $4.40 bookie favourite Think About It and last year’s runner-up Private Eye ($7) and walked away with the winner and third placegetter, Victorian I Wish I Win ($5) splitting the duo.
“I don’t think I’ll feel pressure anymore in any race after that,” Pride said after Think About It’s long neck victory.
“You feel like Edmund Hiliary, once you climb Mount Everest, what do you do after that? I’d love to climb it again but it’s not going to feel as hard next time.
“(It has been) the slowest week of my life. I thought it would rush by and it has been a really slow week that felt like when you’re in a dream and you’re running, it felt like that all week.
“It was a week I promised myself I was going to try to enjoy, and I can’t say I did, but I’ll enjoy this.”
Jockey Sam Clipperton positioned Think About It stalking the speed and the prolific winner – whose only defeat in 12 starts came in a midweek benchmark race at his third run – ranged up in the straight to hit the front.
Once that happened, Pride knew it was going to take an extraordinary horse to run him down.
“I actually thought his stablemate (Private Eye) was going to get past him at the 150, he’d had a pretty tough run and it told in the end, but I’m not sure if he hadn’t had that tough run whether he really could have beaten him because this horse has never been run down from behind,” Pride said.
When asked what made Think About It so special, Pride said it was his innate qualities.
“He’s tenacious,” Pride said.
“There’s not much about him physically to say that he’s better than the rest but he’s just got a great motor, clearly, a V8 engine and a mind to match.”
Pride has been training for over two decades and while he doesn’t have the numbers of Sydney’s major stables, instead preferring a hands-on approach, he has invariably got a good horse in his yard.
Both his Everest runners were syndicated by Jamie Walter’s Proven Thoroughbreds and Pride said they had been an invaluable support.
Think About It and Private Eye are likely to head towards the Giga Kick Stakes (1300m) at Rosehill in three weeks, although the latter will also be considered for a Melbourne campaign.
Peter Moody was proud of runner-up I Wish I Win, the T J Smith Stakes winner in the autumn who was doing his best work late.
“The winner is a good horse – he’s a winner, all credit to him – and our bloke ran super,” Moody said.
Clipperton, who was a two-time champion Sydney apprentice and cut his career teeth at Randwick, was “blown away” to win the world’s richest race on turf in front of a crowd of 46,498.
He said it went like a dream.
“I had such a nice run in the race and travelled so well,” Clipperton said.
“This stuff doesn’t happen, it just went too perfect.
“I guess that’s what very good horses do, maybe even champions, they eliminate the opposition.”
