Racing: Wheeler returns to Oakbank

Top jumper Real Tonic with trainer John Wheeler. Photo / Dean Purcell

Late last year John Wheeler said he doubted that he would be campaigning any further jumpers in Australia.

The lure of Australian outback racing is stronger than that.

Part of Wheeler's decree was that the Victorian Government was about to do its best to close jumps racing down in that state, which would have made it difficult for South Australia to continue.

That, at least temporarily, has been avoided.

What, it seems, can't be avoided is Wheeler's love affair with the Oakbank carnival in the Adelaide Hills and particularly the meeting's famous Great Eastern Steeplechase.

If you have been to Oakbank on a non-raceday you will have marvelled at how it's possible to cram 50,000 to 60,000 into something of a ramshackle racecourse plonked not far from the centre of the half-dozen shops and a pub that make up the village.

If Melbourne Cup Day is the world's biggest outdoor party, then Great Eastern Day at Oakbank is the biggest on a non-metropolitan venue.

And, yes, John Wheeler will be there trying to win the A$160,000 Great Eastern (4950m) on Monday - for the eighth time.

Wheeler has Petushki and Banna Strand entered and fellow New Zealander Mark Oulaghan has the promising South Road.

The Easter Monday steeplechase is unique and having been won back in 1876 for the first time by Tormentor, the race is among Australia's oldest.

Englishman James Johnston settled in the Oakbank district after arriving from his home country in the 1830s.

He opened a brewery and helped map out the course for the Great Eastern, first named the Onkaparinga Steeplechase. On the morning of the first running in 1876 it was discovered that overnight a storm had blown down a large gumtree, which had fallen across the path of the course.

It was decided to make the fallen tree one of the obstacles to jump, a tradition that has survived to this day.

The grandstand for the first running was apparently a brewery wagon loaned by the Johnstons and the official judge stood on an upturned butter box.

If you have been to a Great Eastern raceday only a few things have changed.

It's an atmosphere John Wheeler has always thrived on.

Touch Judge was the first Wheeler-trained jumper to win the Great Eastern in 1993, followed by Tyrolia in 1994. Light Hand won in 1995 and 1996 and Foxbay prevailed in 1997 to give Wheeler five consecutive winners.

The classy St Steven won in 2001 and Real Tonic in 2006.

Part of Wheeler's mastery of the race has been devising an approach where his horses take the unusual step of running a steeplechase 48 hours earlier on the first day of the meeting on Saturday.

He has entered Petushki and Banna Strand for the A$100,000 Von Doussa Steeples (3250m) on Saturday and Mark Oulaghan also has South Park nominated. Wheeler has also taken to Oakbank Squire Rex, who has not raced since September 2009.

He has been nominated for Saturday's Yalumba Handicap, at 3600m Australia's longest flat race, and is expected to back up in the A$100,000 Yalumba Hurdles on Monday.

Mark Oulaghan will run Clarence in Saturday's A$30,000 Woodford Hurdles. Clarence showed considerable promise by finishing third in last August's Grand National Hurdles behind Joint Effort.