Racing: Novice calls on iron will in Ellerslie drama

You can't script these sorts of things.

The least-experienced jockey in the field, riding the least-experienced horse, in New Zealand's biggest hurdle race.

The rider a young woman with just four career wins behind her and no future in the tough racing industry, who gave up race riding three years ago to become a stay-at-home mum.

The horse owned and trained by a smart and clever, but in racing terms, nondescript Wanganui farmer.

To add to the challenge, the rider lost a stirrup iron with a round of the Ellerslie track to travel.

In terms of how difficult that should have made it, the horse could have been pulled out of the race.

It echoes the script for the classic movie National Velvet, when Liz Taylor won the Grand National.

So how did Starbo and Laura Tunnell eclipse the best Great Northern Hurdles field assembled in the past two decades?

For starters, Starbo, in terms of potential, will probably have to be rated right up there among the best Great Northern winners in modern times.

Winning the Great Northern after just two career jumping starts is unthinkable, even allowing that the recent switch to brush hurdles from the old, tougher batten fences has made that task somewhat less difficult.

Let's be honest, there were those who thought the task of winning this race against tough, wily jumps jockeys was beyond Tunnell.

In terms of lifetime riding experience she is a rank novice and that was in evidence at times during her recent comeback.

But Tunnell showed on Saturday that if she lacks game play on the track, she has something that is equally as valuable - the horsemanship to be able to overcome the loss of a stirrup iron during a race.

Horsemanship and jockeyship are completely different. One is the ability to sit on a horse well and get on with it, the other is the tough-minded talent to out-manoeuvre the opposition.

It's like being able to drive a car exceptionally well, then suddenly finding yourself on the grid at the Monaco Grand Prix, where covering the tar seal will be a little different.

Make no mistake about the size of the challenge Tunnell faced when she found one foot out of the stirrup iron while leaving the straight with a lap of the Ellerslie track and six fences in front of her and Starbo.

This was worse than riding bareback - to have balance on one leg and not the other is a rider's nightmare. A horse's too.

"I tried to kick the other foot out several times, but it wouldn't come out of the iron," she said.

As the pair came into the hurdle by the 1400m in fifth, Tunnell was desperate: "I kept saying to myself, 'Just hang on, PLEASE hang on'."

Remarkably, she balanced herself so well from that point that practically no one was aware that she was riding with only one iron.

Commentator George Simon, watching closer than anyone else, picked it up only when the pair staged a dramatic finishing sprint to get past the luckless Midnight Opal in the closing six strides.

"I just cuddled the horse as much as I could," said Tunnell.

"I thought back to my days at pony club and I thought of Mr [Ken] Browne and I thought: 'I can do this'."

It wouldn't be a Great Northern if Ken and Ann Browne did not play at least some part in the victory.

Tunnell had only just finished saying that she learned to ride bareback over the jumps at the Brownes' when Ann Browne marched up and congratulated her with: "You've had plenty of practice at that".

The Brownes have long been firm believers in teaching their riders proper balance with bareback jumping.

Tunnell said the reason she left her finishing sprint so late was that she dared not move on Starbo until the jumping was over. The last hurdle is close to the finish at Ellerslie and Starbo needed all of his superior speed on the flat to get up and win when Tunnell finally asked him for whatever he had left.