Giga Kick’s victory in the Champions Sprint continued the influence that trainers and jockeys with a jumps racing background had on the 2025 Melbourne Cup carnival. (Photo by Josh Chadwick/Getty Images)
Comment: It has been 17 years since the last hurdle or steeplechase was held at Flemington and 24 years since the last edition of the Cup Day hurdle, yet the influence of jumps racing industry was stamped all over the four days at Flemington in 2025, playing a key role in four of the biggest wins of the week.
The winners of the Victoria Derby, Melbourne Cup, VRC Oaks and Champions Sprint all owed at least some of their success to jumps racing heritage.
The Derby and Sprint winners were both trained by ex-jumps jockeys, the Oaks winner ridden by one and the Cup winner Half Yours is steeped in connections to a format which, while it battles for profile, still commands influence when it comes to producing world-class horsemen and women and those with an abiding passion for the sport.
It is arguable that none of the four stories that underpinned a resurgent week at Flemington would have occurred had a planned end to jumps racing in Victoria proceeded in 2009.
That sliding doors moment puts the current uncertainty about the short-to medium-term future of jumps racing in Victoria in a slightly different context. That future needs to consider not just the animal welfare and commercial benefit of jumps racing, but its role as a proven ground and pathway for the next generations of jockeys and trainers.
There is no better example of this than Ciaron Maher, who prepared Derby winner Observer. Maher started out as a jumps jockey, won his first race as a trainer over jumps, and has dominated Australia’s biggest jumps races, while building one of Australia’s most successful stables.
When Racing Victoria announced its ban on jumps racing in 2009, Maher was still in the infancy of his career. Yes, he already had a Group 1 on his resume thanks to Tears I Cry, but in the 2008/09 season, 13 of his 22 seasonal winners came in either steeples or hurdles. The following season, it was 10 out of 24, including the first of his seven Grand Annual Steeples.
Maher’s passion and aptitude for jumps racing inspired the late Colin McKenna’s increased investment. Owner and trainer shared two memorable successes in the Grand Annual with Regina Coeli, as well as their more famous Flat wins with the likes of Jameka and Merchant Navy.
McKenna and his wife Janice are the breeders of Melbourne Cup winner Half Yours, who has another strong connection to jumps racing. The Australian-bred stayer is by a sire, St Jean, whom Mckenna also held an ownership share in and was brought to Australia by a jumps trainer, Aaron Purcell.
Injury, and a complicated issue regarding ibuprofen positive, kept St Jean from fulfilling his potential on the Flat, and a possible career over the jumps. After a detour via New Zealand, he returned to stand at stud, with Purcell and McKenna’s support, in Victoria.
The McKennas sent Half Yours’ dam La Gazelle to him in 2019, along with Regina Coeli, perhaps hoping for another jumps star. Instead, they got a Melbourne Cup winner.
McKenna’s death in October last year saw a dispersal of some of his racing stock. Among them was Half Yours, now famously purchased for $305,000 by Tony and Calvin McEvoy, the former, quite proudly a Grand National Steeple-winning trainer, with Lance Corporal in 2003, from the days when it used to be held at Flemington.
On Thursday, Strictly Business reprised Half Yours’ fairytale theme when she triumphed in the VRC Oaks at just her fourth start.
She was ridden by John Allen, an Irish jumps jockey who came to Australia to ride over obstacles before turning his attention to a highly successful Flat career, which has now yielded an impressive 21 Group 1 winners. Coincidentally, he also rose Regina Coeli to her two Grand Annual wins for Maher and the McKennas
Strictly Business’ trainer is Thomas Carberry, part of an unmatched Irish jumps racing dynasty. His father, grandfather, two brothers, and a sister were champion jumpsjockeys. Thomas didn’t have their talent in the saddle, but was a terrific horseman all the same, working as a breaker and then in Darren Weir’s stables before breaking out on his own.
He was introduced to Martin Falvey, breeder and owner of Strictly Business by mutual friend, Tom Ryan, another Irish jockey who came to Australia to ply his trade over jumps. It’s arguable that Allen, Ryan and even Carberry don’t come to Australia if it wasn’t for jumps racing. The Oaks story would likely have been different if that hadn’t happened.
On Saturday, as Giga Kick prevailed in a thrilling finish to the Champions Sprint, his trainer Clayton Douglas wielded his rain jacket like a whip, urging his star sprinter to victory.
Douglas has urged plenty of horses home over the years as a jumps jockey himself. He won two editions of the Grand Annual, the last in 2021. Given his family connection in racing, he may have found himself training regardless, but there was no doubt his understanding of horses has been forged from a perspective of the saddle.
It’s a slightly uncomfortable truth for the VRC, which cut its 150-year long ties with jumps racing in 2008. A disastrous Grand National Hurdle that year saw only four of the 13 runners finish, and the decision was made to move jumps racing out of the Flemington spotlight.
The delicate tastes of the urban racegoer, or the Saturday city spotlight, did not have an appetite for the additional risks that jumps racing entailed.
Ciaron Maher (left), who claimed the 2025 Victoria Derby with Godolphin star Observer, owes much of his success to a jumps racing connection. (Photo by Bronwen Healy. The Image is Everything – Bronwen Healy Photography)
It became an off-Broadway pursuit, and in 2009, as mentioned, faced its end. RV gave jumps racing one last chance in 2010, saying it would be allowed to continue if it met stringent welfare outcomes.
That allowed the political air to come out of the issue. A change of government in Victoria at the end of 2010 then made reform a less politically pressing issue. Jumps racing adapted, changing its fences and hurdles, tightening criteria for eligible horses and focusing on continued improved welfare outcomes.
The industry knew that if it kept its head down, stayed out of the headlines, and avoided becoming a political football, it would survive. It has become an increasingly rural pursuit.
The intervening 16 years have not been without existential drama. When Banna Strand leapt into the crowd at Warrnambool in 2011, it courted international headlines. South Australia opted out in 2022, banning the sport, leaving Victoria as the only state to continue.
A tragic run of events at Ballarat on Grand National Steeplechase day in 2024, where three horses died and two jockeys were hospitalised, put the future of the sport firmly back in RV’s spotlight.
It conducted a review, which seriously considered, once again, the end of the jumps format. Eleven recommendations were made, but RV ultimately kept the sport, albeit with a shorter season, less venues and greater jockey education. It had shrunk once again.
The 2025 jumps season passed without major incident, giving the sport a reprieve and a lifeline.
Equine welfare is a huge priority for Racing Victoria as its strict protocols surrounding the Melbourne Cup show. The string of deaths in Australia’s most famous race prompted much soul-searching and recognition that social licence for all racing could not be taken for granted.
VRC Oaks-winning jockey John Allen moved from Ireland to Australia as a jumps rider before transitioning to the Flat. (Photo by Bronwen Healy. The Image is Everything – Bronwen Healy Photography)
But as much as the wellbeing of the horse should be at its centre, it is also a battle of political perception. Jumps racing is a lightning rod for the welfare debate and, despite the spectacular feats of its participants, presents potential to provide a negative impact on the image of the sport.
There is the economic viability of a sport that has a small subset of participants, and which, as a rule, attracts less wagering than equivalent Flat races. Many who fear the end of jumps racing say it will be this aspect that will be used eventually to shut it down.
But as Cup week shows, there is another part of this contribution. The increased risks and challenges of jumps racing demand greater skill by the jockeys and trainers.
It is arguable that environment is conducive to developing better horsemen and women. If jumps racing were ever to cease, this pathway would run dry.
It’s a one-year sample, but the feats of Allen, Maher and Douglas are all examples of how important that pathway has been. For those who make the call on jumps racing, this factor should be at least part of their consideration.
