Racing: Champers flows freely at Te Rapa

Photo / Christine Cornege

George Truby remembers two dates in his life.

December 4, 1998, is one of them.

That's the day a Las Vegas taxi wiped him out, costing him his right leg.

"I was crossing the road after just watching a simulcast of racing at Moonee Valley [in Melbourne] when I was hit."

But the son of Dalmatian parents, who ran a fish and chip shop in Auckland's Royal Oak, hasn't let that stop his enjoyment of travelling the world or pursuing his two loves: wine and jumps racing.

That, despite original concerns he would live after the horrific Las Vegas accident.

"I was thrown 12m. I had a hole in my brain and was unconscious for six days," he said after experiencing what he described as "my greatest moment" in winning Saturday's $33,500 Waikato Steeplechase with Mali Juraj.

George Truby isn't just a wine expert.

He's an oenologist, the absolute cream of that crop.

"I give assistance to wine makers when needed," he says modestly, but you quickly get the sense there is an awful lot being left unsaid there.

He is regarded as one of the world's experts on champagne and has written two books on the bubbles, the second currently in production.

Truby left New Zealand in 1983 to open a wine school in New York, selling it seven years later and opening a second in Arizona.

Saturday's great moment in his life is the product of the other date Truby remembers well, Great Northern Steeplechase Day at Ellerslie, 1947.

"I can't remember if he ran in the big race that day or not - I was only 5 - but I fell in love with a grey horse that day named Uganda.

"Ever since, I've always wanted to win the Great Northern Steeplechase."

That dream came an awful lot closer with Saturday's emphatic victory.

In more recent years Truby has lived in Italy and San Diego and has flirted with Tasmania. He had originally thought he would settle - although he says the word settle doesn't comfortably fit into his profile - on the Gold Coast.

"So I called a friend, Kaye Tinsley [a former New Zealander training on the Gold Coast] and asked him to find me a horse I could win the Brisbane Cup with."

Tinsley, father of leading Central Districts jockey Hayden Tinsley, contacted Wingatui studmaster Brian Anderton, who said he had two untried Yamanin Vital 2-year-olds in the back paddock for sale.

One of them was Mali Juraj.

As only an owner can, Truby loved the looks of his new purchase.

"He was such a lovely specimen."

Linda Wheeler, wife of trainer John Wheeler, now describes Mali Juraj as an "anti-social hairy goat".

On that strip of green where looks run a shocking second to heart and attitude, Mali Juraj has what it takes, but he's not without his problems.

He's smallish and narrow and all his jockeys, including Saturday's winning rider Richard Eynon, say he's extremely easy to fall off.

Which led to two of Truby's greatest disappointments in racing.

He made special trips from San Diego when Mali Juraj ran in the Grand National Steeplechase in Melbourne and in the Great Northern Steeplechase at Ellerslie last September.

On both occasions Mali Juraj parted company mid-race with the now injured Brett Scott, the best in the business in Australia and New Zealand and very unaccustomed to falling off.

"He was bolting when Brett came off with a round to go in the Northern," says Truby with more than a little regret.

Eynon said on Saturday he was lucky to stay aboard at several jumps early in the race.

"You have to be very careful on him."

George Truby has a voice that could make him a Shakespearean actor, doubtless modulated by his international style of living.

But it wasn't always that way.

"My parents could barely speak English and I had to move heaven and earth to learn to speak it."

His upbringing, he says, taught him about wine.

"Wine was on the table with each meal. To a Dalmatian, wine is a food like bread and milk and you were taught to respect it."

So does being a oenologist mean it's now impossible to enjoy a $20 bottle of wine?

You get the impression Truby would hate to be seen as a wine snob, but he does admit he enjoys the good stuff.

"I have a glass of good [for that probably read GOOD] champagne at 6pm every day of my life. Then, while I'm deciding what I'll cook for dinner I have a glass of white before switching to red."

Ironically, his "greatest day" on Saturday meant he missed the 6pm glass of champers for the first time he can remember since his accident because he was driving back to Gisborne, where he is developing a property he hopes he can settle down on.

"Yes, it was unfortunate," he says.

He'll be making sure it doesn't happen again if he has an even greater moment on Great Northern Steeplechase day in September.

Sixty-four years is a long time to wait.

WAIKATO STEEPLES

* A wine guru had his "greatest moment" at Te Rapa on Saturday.

* George Truby, a world traveller, returned to win the big race with Mali Juraj.

* Now he wants to fulfil a life-long ambition to win the Great Northern Steeples.