Niwot - Against all odds
If the Hawkes Racing team can pull off a Melbourne Cup win on Tuesday with its seven-year-old gelding Niwot, it will go down in racing folklore as another great Melbourne Cup story.
Back in June 2009, Niwot was a promising four-year-old stayer that had just won the Listed Winter Cup (2400m) at Rosehill. He went for a spell with a spring campaign in mind.
Shortly after, trainers John and his two sons Wayne and Michael Hawkes were told Niwot would never race again after the horse "smashed up" a knee in a "freak paddock accident", when having what would normally be, a harmless roll.
"The vets said the x-rays looked like you got an old fashioned meat grinder and smash, smash, smash, smash, smash, like mum used to do to tenderise the meat," Wayne Hawkes said.
"They said he’s finished, gone, absolutely finished."
Team Hawkes refused to give up knowing the talent the son of Galileo possessed and they advised the owners to "forget you own him”, give him a year in the paddock, and "see what happens".
"He sat around in a paddock at Peter Morgan’s for 12 months," Michael Hawkes said.
"After a year we got him into the water walker for a couple of weeks the back out in the paddock for a month, in for a couple of weeks, back out to the paddock again, did that again and again then all of a sudden he’s back, and it’s never bothered him since."
On Tuesday, Niwot will attempt to become the first seven-year-old gelding to win the Melbourne Cup since Rogan Josh gave Bart Cummings his 11th win in the race. The Melbourne Cup is the only major that has eluded Cummings’s fellow Hall of Fame inductee John Hawkes.
Last year the father and sons team came close when their flagship galloper Maluckyday beat all but the French stayer Americain in the 150th running of Australia’s greatest horse race.
"Racing owes dad nothing but it would be great if this bloke could give him a Melbourne Cup trophy," Wayne Hawkes said.
"He’s won everything else but this is the one he’s never got and it’s the race he’s always wanted win."
Niwot stormed into calculations for Tuesday’s race when he recorded an easy win in the Group III Lexus Stakes, which like the Geelong Cup has proved to be a genuine Melbourne Cup guide in recent years.
"The Lexus form stacks up," Michael Hawkes said. "The race has had a bit of resurgence in recent years, the Shocking form, Maluckyday form.
"He’s come through Saturday really good and we’re happy with him heading into Tuesday.
"Now it’s a matter of wait and see."
Niwot has had strong backing at Centrebet since the barrier draw. The horse has firmed from $17 into $13.
Niwot will be ridden by Victoria’s prolific rider of winners Dean Yendall and will jump from barrier nine, a gate Wayne Hawkes described as "absolutely perfect".
Story: Clinton Payne RaceNet