If the Melbourne Spring Carnival has anything on its side, it’s history. On Thursday, the G1 VRC Oaks will celebrate its 161st running, a race instituted in 1861, the same year as the Melbourne Cup.
In the long and glorious annals of the Oaks, early winners include the extraordinary mares Briseis (Tim Whiffler {GB}) and Lady Wallace (Wallace), while more recent legends include Light Fingers (NZ) (Le Filou {Fr}), Surround (NZ) (Sovereign Edition {Ire}) and Miss Finland (Redoute’s Choice).
Still to this day, the Oaks is a stiff test of 3-year-old fillies. Its distance is largely unchanged in 161 years (it went to 2500 metres in 1973), and it’s still extracting the finest of horses. It’s also traditionally been a more refined raceday, ‘a distinctly more select gathering, this one that assembles to see the Oaks’, noted the Daily Telegraph as far back as 1899.
This year, the race has a field of 11 horses, and among the owners is Sandy Tait, who has every claim to a history with the VRC Oaks.
Kathy and Sandy Tait
Tait’s filly Zanbagh (Bernardini {USA}) was second to Kirramosa (NZ) (Alamosa {NZ}) in this race in 2013, and second again in its Sydney equivalent to Rising Romance (NZ) (Ekraar {USA}).
“Zanbagh was trained by Guy Walter, and she was second in two Oaks, the first at Flemington when she was beaten by a head, and the second at Randwick,” Tait recalls. “She was beaten more soundly that day, but she was an outstanding filly, and the Oaks, and any of these great races really, are certainly something you’d love to win.”
On pedigree alone
On Thursday, Sandy Tait’s horse is the 3-year-old filly Douceur, who is by No Nay Never (USA) from the stoutly bred Zabeel (NZ) mare Danalicious.
Douceur is a tidy filly whose page boasts the stakes winners Shania Dane (Danehill {USA}), Scintillation (Danehill {USA}) and Risk Aversion (Encosta De Lago). This is a family that has kept emerging, with Summer Passage (Snitzel) featuring in it, the top male on the New Zealand 2-Year-Old Free Handicap in 2017.
Douceur
Tait picked up the filly at the 2020 Inglis Ready2Race Sale, where she was bought via Andrew Williams Bloodstock for $125,000. She was sold by Riverrock Farm in New Zealand, and turned in a Taupo breeze up of 10.55s.
“We picked her on pedigree,” Tait said. “She’s by No Nay Never, who’s a stallion I really like, out of a Zabeel mare over a Danehill mare, so it’s a lovely pedigree. No Nay Never is an outstanding stallion, and I really like these overseas sires.”
"She’s (Douceur) by No Nay Never, who’s a stallion I really like, out of a Zabeel mare over a Danehill mare, so it’s a lovely pedigree." - Sandy Tait
The first time Tait clapped eyes on Douceur, it was at Warwick Farm ahead of the Ready2Race Sale last year.
“Andy Williams showed her to me a few days before the Sale, and my impression was that she was a nice filly,” Tait said. “She wasn’t overly big, but I bought her on pedigree over anything else.”
Douceur’s selling at Warwick Farm was the third time she had gone through an auction, because initially she was a $52,000 weanling, sold by Morning Rise Stud to Maluka Thoroughbreds at the 2019 Inglis Great Southern Sale.
The following March, Douceur was sold by Maluka Thoroughbreds at the 2020 Inglis Melbourne Premier Sale, getting $80,000 from Chad Ormsby, the principal of Riverrock Farm in Tirau, New Zealand.
“She had a little bit of an attitude at the start,” Ormsby said ahead of the filly’s sale at Warwick Farm. “But she got over that pretty quickly. She is a quirky little filly, but that only adds to her spunk.”
Wakeful form
Douceur is trained at Plumpton, northwest of Melbourne, by Patrick Payne, and she won on debut at Ballarat in March this year. It was a respectable maiden that featured the promising filly Under The Dunes (Under The Louvre), who has been first or second in three starts for the Maher-Eustace stable.
Thereafter, Tait’s filly won again at Ballarat in July and was second at Sandown in September, and, stepping up to Listed company and then Caulfield last month, she was unplaced.
But she bounced back last Saturday with a third place to Willowy (Kermadec {NZ}) in the G2 Wakeful S. on Derby Day, earning her oats for a berth in the G1 VRC Oaks.
Douceur (red silks, white cap) finishes third behind Willowy and Daisies in the G2 Wakeful S.
“She’s been very good because she’s showed that she’s very genuine,” Tait said. “She’s a trier, and that’s the thing they need under pressure. The times when she finished out of the money recently were both unlucky, because she couldn’t get out at Caulfield. If she had, she might have won.”
"She’s (Douceur) been very good because she’s showed that she’s very genuine. She’s a trier, and that’s the thing they need under pressure." - Sandy Tait
All up, Douceur has started in eight races for two wins and two places, and she’s close to $100,000 in prizemoney. Saturday’s race will be her first go at 2500 metres, but that also applies to the rest of the field.
The filly will carry jockey Michael Dee, who rode her into the first three in the Wakeful S., and the pair will jump from the widest gate in barrier 11. It’s not an ideal draw, but it’s not something that’s bothering Tait too much.
“The draw is difficult, but we’ll just see how the race pans out,” he said. “It’s not a big field, so that’s the only positive thing I can say about the draw. It’s a very competitive field, as the Oaks always is, and they’re all good fillies with good form. It will be a really difficult Oaks to win, so we can just hope she runs well.”
As good as he’s seen
Sandy Tait will be at Flemington for the Oaks on Thursday. He wasn’t there on Saturday for the Wakeful, and he watched the Cup from home too.
This is a man that knows a good horse, for Tait had Tie The Knot (Nassipour {USA}) win almost everything (including two Sydney Cups) for he and his sister Jill Nivison.
Gallery: Legendary Tie The Knot and his connections
The Tait family was also associated with the incredible broodmare Dark Jewel (Star Kingdom {Ire}), whom they purchased at the 1955 yearling sales and who gave them no less than five stakes winners, including Baguette, Cabochan (Edmundo {GB}) and Heirloom (Rego {Ire}).
This is a man that knows a good horse, for Tait had Tie The Knot win almost everything (including two Sydney Cups) for he and his sister Jill Nivison.
Lately, Tait has raced Cherry Tortoni (Night Of Thunder {Ire}), who was second in the G2 Moonee Valley Vase before a win in the Listed Adelaide Guineas in May, and Tait is also the father of Twin Hills studmaster Olly Tait.
It’s a family as decorated as any in Australia, and so Tait’s perspective on Tuesday’s Melbourne Cup is as good as any.
“It was an incredible race won by an all-time great mare,” he said. “Verry Elleegant is an absolutely exceptional mare, and to win the Melbourne Cup by 4l with 57kg was a remarkable effort. She’s got to be in the same company now as Makybe Diva, Ethereal and all those other great mares that have won the Cup, that’s what I would say.”
