JULY 14 and 15, 1976.
Forty-eight years have transpired since, but they’re dates Geoff Challen continues to remember well – and for a very special reason.
As a 20-year-old apprentice, he combined with his then boss, the legendary late Newcastle trainer Roy Hinton, to carry off Grafton’s feature double; the Ramornie Handicap and Grafton Cup.
Neither jockey nor trainer has been able to emulate that feat since in the same year, although the late Billy Cook rode both winners in 1946 (Oriental in the Ramornie, and Spearex in the Cup).
“Billy was a senior jockey, and I was still an apprentice, so I can claim the record,” Challen jokingly told us during an interview on the eve of this year’s famous July double.
Larry Olsen won the 1988 Ramornie on New Zealand sprinter Regal Affair, and the Cup either side (on his subsequent Melbourne Cup winner Kensei in 1987 and Kiwi mare Shuzohra in 1989).
The Ramornie (1200m) was worth $10,000 when Challen won it on the brilliant three-year-old filly Swiftly Ann, and the Cup (2200m) carried a $20,000 purse when he backed up a day later to clinch the double on Ontonic, defeating his glamour stablemate Manawapoi, who had won the Group 1 Stradbroke Handicap (1400m) at Eagle Farm only a month or so earlier.
Glen Innes-born Challen had his racing appetite whet as a youngster when his father took him to Royal Randwick for a feature meeting at a time when they were visiting relatives in Sydney.
“Dad put me up on his shoulders, and I could see the flashy colours of the jockeys going past,” he recalled.
“I made up my mind that’s what I wanted to do, and Dad bought me a pony at Christmas later that year.”
Challen actually began his apprenticeship in Sydney, and joined Hinton for the last 11 months of his term.
“I had only been with Roy for a couple of months when I got the chance to win the Grafton double,” he said.
“I was very lucky to get the ride on Swiftly Ann in the Ramornie as Alan Scorse (Hinton’s son-in-law) had been suspended after winning the Stradbroke on Manawapoi.
“Swiftly Ann was a very quirky mare, and I won on her at Canterbury a few weeks before the Grafton race.
“Alan told me beforehand how to ride her, and made me swear I would never tell anyone else.
“You had to make sure she felt your hands on her neck, otherwise she would go backwards.
“And when I straightened for home on her, I had to wait until she got on the wrong leg, and then she really let go.
“Three or four Sydney jockeys chased Roy for the Ramornie ride, and I’m sure Alan had a lot to do with me staying on her.
“Ron Quinton was in the barrier stall beside me in the Ramornie, and told me to make sure I got Swiftly Ann to begin well.
“She did and was always travelling like a winner, and bolted in.”
Challen rode the Oncidium four-year-old Ontonic in a lead-up race at Grafton five days before the Cup when he was unluckily beaten over 1600m.
“Ontonic had a big weight that day and a gap in the straight closed on me just as I went for a run, and he was beaten only two lengths,” he said.
“My parents were at Grafton that year, and it was a great thrill to win the double in front of them.
“I told them I thought Swiftly Ann could win, and to be sure to have something on Ontonic each-way.
“The Cup was run on a pretty heavy track, and I got well back on him.
“He was travelling through the ground strongly and when they started going wide approaching the home turn, I stayed near the inside.
“With his lighter weight (only 47.5kg), he burst through in the straight and carrying a fair bit less than Manawapoi, who was jumping from the 1400m of the Stradbroke, the double was ours.”
Challen remembers chatting with Roy Hinton (who passed away in 2017 at 92 years of age) at his 90th birthday party about the pair winning both Grafton races in 1976.
“We’ve still got the record,” Hinton told Challen, who called a halt to his career in 2000 at 44 years of age.
“I look forward to watching the July carnival every year, and no doubt it will happen one year when the same jockey or trainer wins both races,” Challen said.
“It was definitely a highlight of my career, along with winning my first city race on Roy’s War Chariot.”
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HOOFNOTE: Challen actually wasn’t far off capturing Grafton’s three feature races in 1976.
The South Grafton Cup (1600m) back then was run by South Grafton Jockey Club on the following Wednesday after the Ramornie and Cup (Clarence River Jockey Club now conducts all Grafton meetings), and another legendary late trainer, Walcha’s Ron Martin, booked him for Homburg.
“When Ron legged me up, he said Homburg was one run short otherwise he would have been very confident,” Challen said.
“He was right. Homburg just peaked at the end and definitely would have won with an extra run under his belt.”
Nonetheless, Challen, who nowadays is equally at home on a golf course in Newcastle as he was riding in races, can lay claim to winning the three Grafton features.
Whilst he may have had only one more Ramornie ride when third in 1981 on Magucy to the crack sprinter Razor Sharp (who was prepared by another legendary Newcastle trainer, the late Jim Johnstone, and won dual Group 1 VRC Newmarket Handicaps at Flemington), he did win the South Grafton Cup in 1980 on Pokolbin Storm for trainer Darrell Atkins.
Achieving such a feat surely makes Challen a Grafton July carnival legend!
Story John Curtis, July 16, 2024 - Pics supplied
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