After more than two decades in the game, Hunter Valley horse trainer Brett Cavanough has notched up 1,000 race wins.
Key points:
- Horse trainer Brett Cavanough celebrated his 1,000th win on the weekend
- His horse, Burdekin, which is owned by the family, won at the Casino races
- Mr Cavanough has been a trainer for about 20 years and has a win rate of about 15 per cent
The career milestone was made when his six-year-old horse, Burdekin, roared ahead in the 1,000-metre Michael Griffin Memorial Handicap at Casino on the weekend.
“It was just another winner but it happened to be the 1,000th, so it was pretty special,” Mr Cavanough said.
The win puts him among the state’s highest achieving trainers.
With a heavy travelling schedule, the historic moment was enjoyed at home in Scone where Mr Cavanough watched the race on television with his wife and daughter.
“They were charging the TV, ‘Go go go’,” he laughed.
“It was pretty wild. It was a bit like a grand final.
“We ended up having a little party late into the night.”
Burdekin is also owned by the Cavanoughs, making the win extra special.
“Obviously the thousand was good, but to watch the way that horse actually won … Jai Williams [the jockey] just marked him as urgent and sent him to the front at 100 miles an hour,” Mr Cavanough said.
“He went out pretty hard but he kept going and got the job done.”
From country race meets to the Royal Randwick Racecourse in Sydney, Mr Cavanough has been a trainer for more than 20 years, with a solid success rate.
He said his win rate was about 15 per cent, while his top three placings over his career nudged 40 per cent.
A shearer for 14 years
Mr Cavanough was born into the racing industry, riding trackwork at the age of 12 before school for his grandfather Frank Cavanough, who was a mentor for one of Australia’s best trainers, Peter Moody.
He was New South Wales’ leading country trainer in 2007 and 2008.
While horse racing is in his blood, Mr Cavanough has not always worked in the industry.
“I had 14 years of shearing sheep and there was no horses at all,’ he said.
In 1997, Mr Cavanough became the first Australian to hold an official world shearing record when he shore 427 sheep in eight hours on a station in NSW’s Riverina region.
He returned to the racing world a few years later, bringing with him the “mental toughness” both shearing and training horses required.
He remembers shearing near Puckapunyal in central Victoria as part of a team of 21.
“We shore 90,000 wethers, which was deadset a nightmare … we had to shear every day,” Mr Cavanough said.
“I always look back at that. When I think I’m having a bad day in racing, I just think about that.”
