Hi-Jinx — the forgotten Cup winner

Press, 31 August 1983, Page 36

Hi-Jinx — the forgotten Cup winner

NZPA staff correspondent Wellington

It is 23 years since HiJinx won the Centenary Melbourne Cup but even now Trevor Knowles cannot quite forget how they underrated his mare. The memories still rankle. “When I told them here in the spring of 1960 that I thought she could win the Cup they sniggered and told me I was nuts. In Melbourne they took no notice of her, even when she ran a great lead-up race in the Moonee Valley Cup,” he said. “It was the same after she won the big race. There were all the excuses in the world for the beaten horses. Poor old Hi-Jinx, she never got the credit she deserved.”

However, Mr Knowles, 61 now and living on his aptly named Centennial Stud property at Te Rapa, has some good memories — of how Hi-Jinx proved his judgment correct, how she beat the best at Flemington whatever they say about her and how, because she was written off before the race, he was able to get quite astonishing odds from the bookmakers.

On a shelf in Mr Knowles’s living room sits the hand-beaten, gold Centenary cup, a trophy every horse owner on both sides of

the Tasman would give a right arm to possess. Mr Knowles still has HiJinx too. At 28, she browses in the stud’s home paddock, carefully tended in her final years by the man who trained her to win the Southern Hemisphere’s glamour event. Mr Knowles bought HiJinx for a mere 575 guineas at the National Yearling Sales — “I liked her breeding lines,” he said. “She was by Pride of Kildare, a sire with staying blood, from the Foxbridge mare Lady’s Bridge, a Great Northern Oaks winner.”

Naming the filly presented no problems to the joint owners, Mr Knowles and a dairy farmer, Mr Keith Sly. Mr Knowles raced a horse called Himiler and Mr Sly had a thoroughbred called Gay Jinx.

Hi-Jinx missed two-year-old racing because she broke a sesamoid bone. For a while there was some doubt she would ever get to the track, but when the plaster came off, HiJinx’s leg was strong and never troubled her again. The filly started 17 times at three. She won only once but was placed three times and went well enough to encourage her owners. At four she began to look good. At the 1960 Wellington Cup meeting she flashed in for fourth in the one mile three furlongs Ruapehu

Handicap, a race run in record time, and followed with two wins at Wanganui. In the February Hi-Jinx ran third in the Waikato Stayers’ Plate over two miles and Knowles knew he had a stayer in the making. “It was really then we realised we had a true twomiler and began to think about Melbourne.”

After a short let-up, HiJinx won the Hawke’s Bay Cup, downing some pretty good horses. In the spring, Mr Knowles gave the mare three warmup starts and then shipped her and his brilliant sprinter, Karina, to Australia on the Wanganella. Ten days off the boat HiJinx had her first run in the Caulfield Cup, won by fellow New Zealander, Humquh. Hi-Jinx “jumped” one of the course crossings — “there’s a bit of jumping blood back in her pedigree,” Mr Knowles said — and finished fifteenth. Then came the Moonee Valley Cup. “She should have won,” Mr Knowles recalled. “She got held up but when she got clear she came in second with a huge sprint. That was always her strong S’ ' . She could sprint beauy at the end of a race and that was something a lot of people overlooked. “After Moonee Valley I was happy about the Melbourne Cup. I thought then

that if everything went right she would win.” Mr Knowles felt even better on the Monday before the big race. Hi-Jinx did not need much work to bring her to a peak and Australians did not see her between the Moonee Valley and Melbourne Cups. Mr Knowles had planned to give her a strong run on the Sunday before the cup, but Flemington was closed that day and he had to wait until Cup eve on Monday morning for a last training run. The mare sizzled and Mr Knowles hurried off to the bookies. Hi-Jinx had ballooned in the markets and Mr Knowles was able to get 801. He will not say how much he wagered, but does disclose that he had £lOO ($200) each way at 100-1 on Hi-Jinx in the Moonee Valley Cup. On Cup day the smart money was on Ilumquh and punters poured a fortune on the idolised Tulloch, in spite of the crushing lOst lib he was to carry.

Tulloch was back at his brilliant best after a twoyear lay-off because of illness and waltzed off with the Cox Plate and the Mackinnon Stakes.

The enormous Flemington crowd badly wanted a Tulloch win in the Centenary Cup which was carrying a record stake of £25,000 ($50,000).

Tulloch went out 3-1 favourite, with Ilumquh at 7-2. Hi-Jinx, ignored by almost everyone, started at 50-1.

The New Zealander’s victory stunned Flemington. The fans just could not believe it.

“Race of the century to obscure mare Hi-Jinx,” the “Melbourne Age’s” front page sniffed next day. Mr Knowles laughed all the way to the bank.

“I just couldn’t understand how they could let her go out at such a price. And I could not see Tulloch giving my mare 2% stone (HiJinx carried 7st 101 b) and beating her over two miles. But they only had eyes for Tulloch and if they could see past him it was only as far as Ilumquh.”

An Australian, Billy Smith, rode Hi-Jinx in the Cup as he had done in her earlier two races in Australia and occasionally in New Zealand where he then lived.

The mare jumped another crossing at the start of the Cup and drifted. But then Smith parked her in behind the 17 hands Valerius and as the big horse shouldered his way through the pack HiJinx followed.

She was three or four wide most of the way and still only eleventh at the head of the straight. But as Valerius faltered, Hi-Jinx swept around him and Smith unleashed her.

She simply outsprinted the field, collared fellow New Zealander, Howsie, a few strides from the line and won by a half neck. Ilumquh was third for a New Zealand sweep. Tulloch made up much ground for seventh but was never a chance under his huge weight. It was the only time in 53 starts that he was unplaced. Karina, a Railway Handicap winner at Ellerslie, capped a great week for Mr Knowles the Saturday after the Cup by grabbing the Hallmark Stakes, a race later to become the Craven A Stakes.

Back in New Zealand, HiJinx featured on the cover of the 1961 Yearling Sales catalogue and ran, unplaced, in Great Sensation’s first Wellington Cup. Then followed several

good but not winning gallops in the Awapuni Gold Cup, the Hawke’s Bay Cup and the Ormond Memorial. After a winter spell Mr Knowles returned Hi-Jinx to Melbourne but he could see signs of wear in a leg and promptly retired her. Hi-Jinx had a disappointing breeding record and only about five of her offspring got to the racetrack. Several — Centinx, Cup Fever and Super Jinx — were well named but none of them came near matching the record of their famous mother.