Danny Bougoure will saddle the unbeaten Indiscreetly in the $2 million Three-Year-Old Guineas at the Gold Coast on Saturday.
The good-looking filly booked her place in the big race by landing three wins from three starts, but there was a time when any thought of her taking up a place on Magic Millions day was a long way away as the daughter of Spill The Beans, who at one stage was not proving to be the easiest horse to deal with, had yet to race halfway through last November.
Marybeth Lepine, who is the partner of trainer Danny Bougoure, takes us through the back story.
“I guess the funny part of the story is how we got him,” said Lepine. “I’d gone to the sales to buy another horse and I was coming around the corner when I ran into an old friend, Werner Quast. He said to me ‘can you have a look at my filly?’ I said, ‘oh yeah, who’s it by?’ He said, ‘Spill The Beans.’ I said, ‘Oh, ok.’
“When he brought her out, she looked so much like Lonhro I said, ‘Ooh. Hello. I love you’ and he said, ‘that’s what her mother’s name is.’
“That was Indiscreetly, who is by Spill The Beans and out of Hello I Love You. Can you believe it!
“She looked everything like a Lonhro filly. So, yeah, we ended up buying her. It was a bit funny the way it came about.
“She was a lovely filly from day one. She is quite a big filly.
“She was going great guns and she showed quite a bit of promise as a two-year-old, but then she had an accident at Eagle Farm. She was just coming off the track when another horse part t-boned her and she reared up, the jockey fell off and she sort of ended up slipping and sliding on the bitumen there.
“That actually put her out for a little while. After that she was a bit frightened of other horses. We had to end up sending her back to the breakers and they did a lot of work with her … leading her off a horse and that sort of stuff to get her used to horses again.
“Then she came back in. Her barrier trials were always a little bit short. Danny has never been one to make them win the barrier trails at all costs … but, interestingly, every horse that finished in front of her at the trials has pretty much gone on to win.
“She was just one of those horses that just improved quite crazily when she came to the races. She has just loved it. She has stepped up from 1300m to 1400m to 1600m and her winning margin has just got bigger.
“You can see she hasn’t hit her bottom yet, because each time she has won she has been eased up as she has gone passed the winning post and she’s got her ears pricked the last bit.
“If you look at her races you can see that when she comes around the corner with them, they are all under pressure and she is still being held hard together and then Georgie (Cartwright) sort of says ok, let’s go … and she put lengths on them and skips away.” (Indiscreetly’s last winning margin was 6.25 lengths).
‘Georgie has ridden Indiscreetly in her last two starts. Danny is a very loyal person, as am I, and, you know, Georgie works really hard.
“She’ll ride at Gollan’s all morning and then she comes to us. She rides … and then she’ll do barrier trails and jump-outs for us … the whole shebang … and Danny just wanted to repay her loyalty, particularly because, for a while there, Indiscreetly was pretty intense to ride and Georgie’s got a real gift at sticking to them and working with them when they are not going so effortlessly.
“She is just one of those people who have worked very hard and who deserves any success she gets.”
Either way, the emotion is likely to flow on Saturday as they don’t come more passionate about horses than Marybeth Lepine.
Stand anywhere near her when the Danny Bougoure stable has a runner in a race (any race) and you will witness her vividly experiencing countless emotions all wrapped into one bundle as she lives every stride that their horse takes.
And her first priority is never about the win. It is always about the horse coming back safely.
If Indiscreetly does run a cracker and get close … or wins … on Saturday though, you can bet your bottom dollar you will hear a scream of delight. You will see happy tears flow and you might just have to shield your eyes from the glow of Lepine’s smile that is then sure to light up the racetrack if that happens.
Hers is not so much a celebration. It is more just a display of pure joy, which is quite infectious at the time and which is, it itself, presents a great advertisement for racing.
