Racing: Gingernuts capable of 'winning Melbourne Cup'

G Nuts erupt into celebrations at the Hylton Smith Members' Stand balcony in Hastings as Opie Bosson and Gingernuts win the Windsor Park Plate. Photo/Warren Buckland

They rose in unison and respect akin to a gallery in a courtroom when judges make an entrance to preside.

They are the "G Nuts", the syndicated owners and their loyal legion of followers of champion horse Gingernuts.

After the raucous cheers, cat calls and wolf whistles had subsided at the birdcage, the orange baseball cap-clad clan celebrated the short-neck victory of the chestnut gelding that Opie Bosson had ridden to group one Windsor Park Plate glory in Hastings on Saturday.

For most of them it's their first horse, thanks to the vision of Te Akau principal David Ellis, of Auckland, who fellow co-owner Blair Alexander had alluded to while echoing similar sentiments during the prizegiving ceremony.

"David rang me and said I understand you want to buy into a horse so I said straight away I was keen on it," explained a jubilant co-owner, Bill Taylor.

"It's a great story and it's just history now," Taylor said. "He was bought for $42,000 so that was cheap and he's in the making now."

A flute of wine in hand, the beaming 65-year-old from Otorohanga had no hesitation in declaring: "He will go on to win the Melbourne Cup."

Taylor said he had done his homework and everything suggested Gingernuts would do the unthinkable.

"He's going to win it [Melbourne Cup]. He's the only horse who can win it."

Taylor, a 10 per cent shareholder, said Alexander had shouldered the responsibility of syndicating the 4-year-old chestnut gelding's ownership.

"Some bought just two and half per cent and some bought five per cent," he said, revealing majority of the co-owners hail from Auckland but a few, like himself, were from other parts of the country.

As Matamata co-trainers Stephen Autridge and Jamie Richards entered him at race meetings Taylor got to meet other members of the Te Akau Gingernut Syndicate.

"To be honest, when Gingernuts came for his first race here only me and my wife, Robyn, were here when he won.

"We [co-owners] keep in touch and we're becoming good friends."

Taylor said Richards had told him Gingernuts was going to be better in the longer distances as a stayer so the co-trainers were entering him in shorter distances to go on to become a winner.

Did Taylor like to add anything else?

"He"ll be back here for the big one and he's going to win that, too," he said of the $250,000 group one Livamol Classic in Hastings on October 7.