By MIKE DILLON
When Tony Cole says he has a limited future with Royal Ways, Jim Hely stands nearby and wonders why.
As magnificently as Cole prepared Royal Ways for his second $100,000 Mercedes Great Northern, the downside was where to go from here.
"Weight is going to be a big problem from here. He will be weighted out of everything," said Cole.
The quote raises the eyebrows of Hely, a year away from his 70th birthday and formerly one of New Zealand's finest jumps jockeys.
It mystifies Hely, like many others, why the modern-day jumper seems unable to carry the big weights our hurdling and steeplechase stars of yesteryear were asked to lump.
Hely has lived in Melbourne since 1973 and the last Northern Steeplechase he saw was Loch Linnhe winning in 1976.
He rode Patrick Molloy to win the Great Northern in 1961 carrying the equivalent of 61kg and Johnny Dee to win the race in 1964 with the equivalent of 60.5kg.
"They say the old steeplechasers were more like hunters, but Johnny Dee broke the Northern record. He was a long way from being a hunter. So were horses like Smoke Ring.
"I won a hurdle race on Cornishman at the Ellerslie Easter meeting carrying 11st 7lb (73.1kg) and he lined up in the hurdle race they used to have here on New Year's Day with 12st 1lb (76.1kg) and finished fourth.
Cole believes the pace of jumping races today makes big weights prohibitive.
"Also the fences are tougher and they have to jump at speed."
Cole would love Royal Ways to do a Hunterville and win three successive Great Northerns.
"I either back him up in the McGregor Grant Steeples in two weeks, or back off and take him into the Pakuranga Hunt Cup with this race in mind next year.
"But whichever way I go, it is not going to be easy."
Cole strongly advocates a set-weight steeplechase towards the end of the winter, something of a championship race.
"Let's face it, we should have a system which would allow our top horses to be seen more often. The race they should have is like the set-weight Gold Cup they run in England."
Maybe the Pakuranga Hunt Cup could be switched to a set-weight event.
Cole almost doesn't want to test his luck too much with Royal Ways in the near future - he knows he's used up all his luck and then some.
"From the time he came into work this campaign simply everything went perfectly. It's a fairytale result."
So the horse who originally cost less than a budget car and cost Ross Henry a bottle of whisky to sell a quarter share to his mate Roy Johnston has already written his name indelibly into the jumping records.
Fifty years ago, after a handful of placings over the Ellerslie hill as an amateur rider, Henry promised himself he would one day own and train a Great Northern winner.
Two of one and none of the other was still a pretty good result.
Three years ago he gave up alcohol when he developed a "heart noise," but he thought he might last night break his rule.
"Maybe even with two or three."
Racing: Weight may decide path of double Northern star
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