Racing: 'Ordinary-legged smallish filly' shows them she's a winner

Rick Williams, celebratory beer in hand, planted his feet firmly on the carpet in the Winner's Circle hospitality room at Hastings on Saturday and suddenly smiled broadly.

Seachange's manager, strangely, wasn't thinking of the fabulous mare's $200,000 Mudgway Stakes victory 15 minutes earlier.

He was thinking back 365 days.

"You know, I was standing in this exact same spot a year ago," said a proud Williams. "We'd come into this room to watch Seachange win her debut maiden race at Paeroa."

A year back there was no suggestion Seachange was going to get anywhere creating a headline. She was an ordinary-legged smallish filly who was not conformed well enough for the Oaks Stud to send to the yearling sales.

Williams thought if trainer Ralph Manning could win a maiden race before some of the better maidens started spring campaigns that would be enough for the filly's career.

"You know," said Williams, "isn't it marvellous that no matter how much money you've got, no one in the world can dominate this racing game.

"Not the Arabs at Godolphin, despite having 1000 horses, no one."

Williams cannot believe the luck experienced in exactly 12 months by the Oaks Stud he manages for Queenslander Dick Karreman.

"If you'd said to me a year ago that Chant would be the top-rated 2-year-old filly of the year and Seachange would end up the champion 3-year-old filly, I'd have said 'what have you been drinking'?

"I couldn't get a bid for Chant at the sales and we didn't even bother taking Seachange because we knew no one would want her.

"You just never know in this game, and that's the beauty of it. Long may that continue."

Similar luck played a part in Karreman being at Hastings to be present for the first time to see a group one victory.

Karreman operates one of Australia's biggest trucking fleets and had been waiting for an important business appointment for three years.

When the person called midweek and said he could see Karreman on Friday, Karreman cancelled his Friday morning flight to Auckland.

"I wasn't coming over and my oldest son got upset with me and said, 'How many times are you going to get an opportunity to see one of your horses race in a group one', so I was lucky to get on another flight on Friday night."

Karreman doesn't drink, but carried a broad smile and a beer in the Winner's Circle and promised himself one red wine at Taupo on the drive back to his stud in Cambridge.