Not even the eerie emptiness of the Rosehill Gardens racecourse could detract from David Pfieffer’s elation as I Am Excited gave him a maiden Group 1 win in Saturday’s Galaxy.
The Warwick Farm trainer has long held the belief that the daughter of Snitzel was capable of winning at the elite level. “She looked Group 1 material the day she came off a fast pace to swamp Eduardo in the Gr 2 Gilgai Stakes at Flemington eighteen months ago,” said David. “Since then we’ve raced her very sparingly, but she managed a Group 2 win in Brisbane and three placings at Group 3 level before the big one on Saturday.”
David has “cuddled” I Am Excited from the time she came into his stables as an early two year old. “She underwent major colic surgery after being broken in and for a few tense days her life was in the balance,” said the trainer. “Thankfully she appeared to make a full recovery and the owners decided to put her into work on the strict proviso that we’d terminate her training if anything went wrong. The rest, as they say is history.”
Image courtesy Bradley Photographers - David and jockey Tim Clark savour the moment after The Galaxy.
I Am Excited has been right at the top of her game this time in. First up she ran a cracking fifth only 3.5 lengths behind Gytrash in a “hot” Lightning Stakes at Flemington, before returning to Sydney to beat all but Fasika in the Wenona Girl Quality at Randwick, spotting that talented mare 2kgs.
The handicap conditions brought the five year old mare into The Galaxy with only 51kgs and David Pfieffer was happy for the vastly experienced Tim Clark to ride her 1kg overweight. It was of no concern to the trainer that Clark had never been on the mare’s back.
Maybe the trainer was aware The Galaxy has been a special race for the popular jockey. Typhoon Zed gave Clark his very first Group 1 when he won the sprint in 2008 and he repeated the dose three years later on Atomic Force.
I Am Excited “flew the lids” from the inside gate and was able to find a closer than expected position with little effort. She travelled kindly midfield to the turn and dashed through on the inside of Madame Rouge coming to the 200m. She got the better of Victorian mare Miss Leonidas in the closing stages and was gallant to the line.
The well related daughter of Snitzel was a pretty valuable commodity before the Galaxy, but the Group 1 endorsement takes her to another level. Saturday’s win took her record to 7 wins and 9 placings for better than $1.2 million dollars - a fairy tale ending for a filly whose life was in the balance on the operating table at the Scone Equine Hospital a few years ago. Her breeders Bell River Thoroughbreds own a one third share, Elwyn Rea has one third, while the remaining third is shared by Bob, Julie, and Marlene Hogno.
Image courtesy Bradley Photographers - A deceptive angle of The Galaxy finish. I Am Excited actually won by only half a head from Miss Leonidas who's not in the picture.
I Am Excited provided the Ferguson family’s Bell River Thoroughbreds with its third Gr 1 winner since the boutique operation relocated from Wellington (NSW) to the Hunter Valley in 2016. I Am Excited emulated the deeds of Bell River’s dual Group 1 winners Ace High and Extreme Choice.
Interesting to note she has an I Am Invincible half brother in the upcoming Inglis Easter Sale. I imagine the colt’s vendors Newgate Farm would have succumbed to unbridled emotion when I Am Excited’s number flashed into the semaphore at Rosehill. Newgate parted with $400,000 for her dam Lady Beckworth, in foal to Hinchinbrook at the 2016 Inglis Australian broodmare Sale.
Days like Saturday’s Gr 1 feast at Rosehill are traditionally dominated by Australia’s most powerful stables. The Waterhouse/Bott combination upheld that tradition by winning the Slipper, but four other Group 1’s went to three smaller Sydney stables and one very astute English raider. William Haggis, Richard Litt and John Thompson joined David Pfieffer in stealing the show.
For Pfeiffer it was the culmination of a journey he began as a schoolboy in the mid 1990’s. Veteran trainers still remember him as the kid who sold newspapers, potato chips, snack bars and form guides like Sportsman and Best Bets, around the streets of Warwick Farm.
One of his customers, the late Tony Wildman identified the twinkle in his eye whenever the paper boy was around his horses. Tony promised David a job should he choose a career in racing down the track. Young Pfieffer was on Wildman’s doorstep the day after he left school - he was still there when Tony succumbed to cancer in 2008.
David says he couldn’t have had a better tutor than Tony Wildman. “He was meticulous in his methods and totally dedicated to his horses,” said Pfieffer. “He was fanatical about training surfaces at Warwick Farm. When one of his horses was scheduled for an important gallop he would walk the inside grass track looking for the best lane. He taught me a lot of good habits.”
Perhaps the best endorsement of Wildman’s talents came in the late nineties when John Singleton and Gerry Harvey put a large number of horses in his stables. “Apart from his general horsemanship, Tony was also a highly respected judge of a horse’s ability,” said David. “He spearheaded some very successful betting coups over the years.”
Image courtesy Bradley Photographers - David Pfieffer learned his craft from the late Tony Wildman.
Pfieffer blossomed as a horseman in his own right when Tony Wildman sent him interstate with his better performed horses. “I spoke to him every day, but in the main he trusted my judgement and slowly gave me more and more responsibility, “ said David. “ I took Timbourina to Melbourne in 2003 and virtually got her ready for some important assignments. She won fillie’s races at Caulfield and Moonee Valley before winning the Wakeful Stakes. She finished her campaign with a good third to Special Harmony in the VRC Oaks.”
David wasn’t quite ready to go solo after Tony’s passing and elected to take up an offer from Graeme Rogerson who had around 150 horses in work at Randwick. “He put me in charge of his main barn which housed 90 horses and more than thirty staff,” he recalled. “It was a good learning curve and gave me valuable experience in handling a lot of horses and a big staff.”
David Pfieffer was twenty seven years old when he joined the ranks of Sydney’s professional horse trainers. His natural talent and the benefits of expert tutorship quickly came to the surface. A mare called Graceful Anna got him away to a “flyer”, winning more than a million dollars from 6 wins including a Gr 3 Vo Rogue Plate, a Magic Millions Trophy and a listed Silk Stocking.
Gai’s Choice won 7 races and $447,000. Her wins included a Magic Millions Trophy and a listed Gai Waterhouse Classic while she enhanced her stud value with a strong third in the Gr 1 Tatt’s Tiara.
Cradle Me was a great colour bearer for the Pfieffer stable with 11 wins and 11 placings for $691,000. She won a Gr 2 and a couple of listed events.
Image courtesy Bradley Photographers - David won 11 races with Cradle Me including the Canterbury Classic 26/12/2015 - One of three stakes wins for the mare.
Denmagic won only two races for the stable, but was robbed of a couple of others by sheer bad racing luck. She too nabbed third place in a Gr 1, finishing third in the 2016 Myer Classic won by I Am A Star.
David is quick to deflect the theory that he might be another Neville Begg - a specialist trainer of fillies and mares. “I’ve had a wonderful run with fillies and mares, but I’ve won plenty of races with colts and geldings too,” he said. “Let’s see what happens over the next few years.”
David currently has forty horses in his Warwick Farm stables. “I could handle a few more but I’m unable to access more boxes,” said the trainer. “I don’t want to start sprinkling them in other stables around Warwick Farm. I’d rather have them all under the same roof.”
The trainer paid a high compliment to his staff with special mention of his long time foreperson Susan O’Keefe. “I’ve known Susan since the Wildman days, and I was delighted to acquire her services when I went solo,” said Pfieffer. “She plays a massive role in the running of my business.”
David lost the services of another highly valued assistant when his wife Elizabeth thought it time to start a family about seven years ago. Elizabeth, who once rode trackwork for the famous English trainer Sir Michael Stoute was a key member of the Pfieffer staff until family responsibilities caught up.
Nowadays she’s run off her feet catering to the needs of daughter Payton (7) and son Darby (3). Dave gets to show his skills as a babysitter from time to time.
For now he’s got a Gr 1 winning mare to look after. I Am Excited became ballot exempt from the Gr 1 T.J.Smith by winning the Galaxy on Saturday, but her immediate programme hasn’t yet been finalised. “Another option during The Championships is the $300,000 Gr 2 TAB Sapphire Stakes (1200m) on April 11th,” said David. “She’ll meet fillies and mares only as opposed to the T.J.Smith which will draw some of the best sprinters in Australia.”
He’s just 39 years old with a Gr 1 win under his belt and a career win tally of well over 300. The future looks pretty rosy for the young bloke who fell in love with the theatre of racing in the days when he was selling newspapers, potato chips and snack bars to the Warwick Farm regulars.
(Banner Image courtesy Bradley Photographers - I Am Excited threw herself at the line to win Saturday's Galaxy.)