Agroup of local race horse enthusiasts are celebrating success as one of their horses recently ran a bold placing in a prestigious international race watched over by royalty.
Dycer Racing’s Shane, Cath and Chris Dycer own a share in four-year-old stallion Docklands who placed second in the recent Group 1 Queen Anne Stakes at the Royal Ascot carnival in England.
Docklands is trained by Harry Eustace, owned by Melbourne’s OTI Racing and based in Newmarket, England.
“The Royal Ascot carnival is one of the biggest carnivals in the world and the Queen Anne Stakes is a time honoured race and it is rated one of the top three 1600m group one races in the world so it was a pretty big thrill,” Shane Dycer said.
“To run second was brilliant, it would have been great to win but running second was a really good step for the horse and probably really starting to show his ability in the last 12 months.”
Docklands, ridden by Hayley Turner, won the Britannia Stakes and approximately $150,000 in prize money last year at the Royal Ascot carnival after defeating New Endeavour.
“Since then, he had run second in France in a listed race, another second at Ascot in a listed race and third in a group three race in England so he has been building,” Dycer said.
“He has been knocking on the door and he should have probably won the listed races both times and was a victim of circumstances and just got rolled but that’s okay. He’s on the up and he looks like he is a pretty exciting horse.”
Docklands is eyeing off a spot in the renowned Cox Plate which is a 2040m group one race worth $5m held each year at Moonee Valley racecourse in Melbourne.
“Docklands’ aim at this point, it can change but at this stage, but he is looking for another 1800m group race in Europe next month,” Dycer said.
“If it goes well he will be aimed at the Cox Plate and if we think he’s better at a little bit shorter he will go to the Five Diamonds in Sydney which is on the same day which is also worth about $5m.
“It is pretty exciting. His brother came out to Australia a few years ago and his name was Harbour Views and it raced fairly well for Matty Williams in Melbourne.
“We have been around a long time and if it’s Mount Gambier or it’s England or it’s Melbourne, it does not make any difference, you could get a phone call tomorrow to say something has gone wrong.
“There are lots of trainers that are really good trainers etc. and horses are horses and some horses have a lot of talent and do not get hurt and some horses have a lot of talent and get hurt every five seconds so at this stage everything is on track.
“It is a long time until the end of October and he has got to come out on a plane and all that but he has had nine starts and he has only not run in the top three once, he ran fourth so he has always been pretty competitive and he is a very honest horse and he is still a stallion.”
Dycer and his family are long time horse enthusiasts and have had luck with other horses locally, nationally and internationally.
“We have raced horses locally as a family for probably 30 years and in the last sort of 15 years we have probably had more horses through some trainers in Melbourne and OTI Racing,” he said.
“OTI Racing have horses all over the world, they are based in Melbourne but they have a lot of connection overseas and we have been really lucky with our horses that we have had shares in overseas.
“We have probably had 8-9 horses overseas and the majority of them have been quite reasonable and two or three of them have been out here (to Australia).
“Gallic Chieftain was one of them, he won a million dollars in Australia, raced at a Caufield Cup, won a group two in Sydney and run second in a group one at Metropolitan in Sydney. He was bought over there in France and raced there for a little while and then came out.
“We had Future Score who ran third in the Adelaide Cup and third in the Sydney Cup. We also bought him in France and had him for a little while there so they sort of bring them out.
“It (Docklands) is not the first good one we had over there and we have had a couple of others.
“We have had a bit of luck with our overseas horses and generally they end up in Australia at some point.”
