THIS year’s St Patrick’s Day races will hardly be Mick Wayman’s first rodeo, as it were.
The veteran of more than half a century in the racing business, the Broken Hill trainer took out the $25,000 Clubs NSW Outback Cup at the 2023 St Pat’s meeting in 2023 with Velaro.
And he’s planning to be back this year with his recently acquired runner Chesteray – a five-year-old gelding which has been on fire since October last year but is yet to have its first start for Wayman.
He admits the racing game is getting tougher by the day for trainers at the Hill, with no local riders available for trackwork, and not so many options with the track itself since meetings were cut back to two a year.
“I had to take Chesteray to Mildura the other day for a gallop – that’s at my cost and it makes training a bit of a logistical exercise,” Wayman said.
“If you want to train all year round that makes it pretty difficult because during my 50 years in the industry I have taken horses from South Australia to Queensland, but not these days,” he said.
“If there was a race I thought we could win, I’d make the trip.
“I would have had a team of six or seven in work at any one time, but these days Chesteray is the only one I have, and I only got him a little while ago with the cup in mind.”
Chesteray has five wins in its 31-start career and three of those (plus two thirds) have come in its past five starts – the hot streak starting at Bathurst in October and ending with a win at Scone a week before December.
Wayman said he is getting the horse race ready after almost two months away from the track – and if he doesn’t reckon it’s up to cup standard he won’t hesitate to give the race a miss.
“I paid a bit for him – he won his last two starts – but if everything isn’t right he won’t being go around,” he said. “There’s the $100,000 Mildura Cup in May so we might also target that one.
“Getting your horse fit is just part of the job, picking the right race at the right time is the real trick.
“He might also end up in Adelaide later this year, we’ll have to see how he comes on.”
If Chesteray does make the meeting, Barossa Valley based hoop Murray Henderson is likely to get the ride. He and Wayman have worked together for a number of years and the pair combined with Velaro to win in the historic 2023 dead heat, with Magnossiva the other winner.
And the trainer doesn’t think weight will be an issue – with his horse’s current form he expects it could be handicapped with as much as 63.5kg over the classic mile of the Cup.
But don’t worry, if Wayman and Chesteray don’t make it in 2025, he’s already thinking about 2026.
