{"id":3622,"date":"2012-12-27T04:52:00","date_gmt":"2012-12-27T04:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/archive.rockylhc.com\/2015\/elizapark\/?p=3622"},"modified":"2012-12-27T04:52:00","modified_gmt":"2012-12-27T04:52:00","slug":"the-highs-and-lows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.rockylhc.com\/2015\/elizapark\/the-highs-and-lows\/","title":{"rendered":"THE HIGHS AND LOWS"},"content":{"rendered":"

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If ever the diverse nature of the thoroughbred industry could be reduced to a microcosm, the Red Tempo Handicap at Flemington on 21 December would be a stark example.<\/span><\/div>\n
Lining up over the 1000m journey was the Bel Esprit 7YO, Beltrois, who by all accounts had little hope \u2013 the rank outsider.\n<\/p>\n

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He\u2019d been there before \u2026 lots of times in fact. Even won there a tick over three years ago. Indeed, it was at Flemington he\u2019d had his last race: Oaks Day last year.\n<\/p>\n

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So, after being off the scene for nearly 14 months, it\u2019s little wonder there wasn\u2019t much action around the $21.\n<\/p>\n

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But suddenly there he was \u2013 all heart and muscle and totally oblivious to public opinion. Right on the wire, he poked his big head through \u2013 he\u2019d now won six races and close to $400,000.\n<\/p>\n

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Can you imagine the joy of connections? Robbie Griffiths for instance \u2013 he\u2019d bred the horse after all and if there\u2019s one constant I\u2019ve found out in all the years of following this caper, the one you make is more special than the one you buy.\n<\/p>\n

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What\u2019s more, he\u2019d tipped his wife, Shiranee, and some good mates into the ownership \u2026 the late James Lillie, the great Don Healy, Brian and Peter Donohoe \u2013 just to name a few.\n<\/p>\n

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Sadly, mere strides after the post, Beltrois broke a shoulder, broke Ryan Maloney\u2019s wrist and broke a lot of hearts.\n<\/p>\n

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Thing is, we dust ourselves off: Robbie will have been up this morning tending the herd and Shiranee will be looking after Robbie. Brian Donohoe will post even more updates on his Bel Esprit blog.\n<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

It\u2019s totally inadequate to summarise by saying \u201cThat\u2019s Racing\u201d but it\u2019s true \u2013 can you ever really glory in the view from Everest if you\u2019ve never visited the darkest area of the valley?\n<\/p>\n

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That doesn\u2019t mean horse lovers aren\u2019t heavier of step when tragedy strikes and from all of us at Eliza Park \u2013 and to those owners\/trainers\/breeders who have \u2018endured\u2019 similar experiences \u2013 we express our condolences.\n<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

RIP Beltrois.\n<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If ever the diverse nature of the thoroughbred industry could be reduced to a microcosm, the Red Tempo Handicap at Flemington on 21 December would be a stark example. Lining …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.rockylhc.com\/2015\/elizapark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.rockylhc.com\/2015\/elizapark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.rockylhc.com\/2015\/elizapark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.rockylhc.com\/2015\/elizapark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.rockylhc.com\/2015\/elizapark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.rockylhc.com\/2015\/elizapark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3622\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.rockylhc.com\/2015\/elizapark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.rockylhc.com\/2015\/elizapark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.rockylhc.com\/2015\/elizapark\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}