Trainer Proud As A Peacock

The Age

Friday August 25, 2006

By STEPHEN HOWELL

HER mother is Susan Renouf. Her father is Andrew Peacock. Jane Chapple-Hyam has impeccable racing bloodlines and on Wednesday the Melbourne-born trainer won England's best staying handicap.

Her horse, five-year-old Mudawin, overcame 100-1 odds to win the Ebor, a 2800-metre race worth about $500,000, making it Europe's richest handicap.

They were the longest winning odds in the 163-year history of the race.

On Wednesday night in York, Chapple-Hyam, former Brisbane jockey Karl Oldham, who looks after Mudawin, and other connections drank champagne from the winning cup as they celebrated the historic win.

How much? "Too much," Oldham said.

Chapple-Hyam too? "Of course she did."

Did she dance on the table, as her mother reportedly did in 1980 after her horse Beldale Ball won the Melbourne Cup? "No."

Beldale Ball was owned by racing magnate Robert Sangster, who Mrs Renouf married after separating from Mr Peacock, a former Liberal Party leader and owner of Caulfield Cup winner, Leilani.

Chapple-Hyam started training only towards the end of last year, after she and trainer Peter Chapple-Hyam separated.

Mudawin, ridden by jockey John Egan, was her fourth winner from 10 horses.

"It wasn't a total shock," she said, "because we've always thought a lot of this horse and I thought he was a crazy price."

Her one regret yesterday was that the horse's owners had not entered Mudawin in this year's Melbourne Cup. "Lately his form hasn't been good enough to enter," she said. "But he has just come along in the last fortnight."

She said she would inquire if there was still a way in, but she will be disappointed. Racing Victoria's director of operations, Leigh Jordan, said entries closed on August 1, late entries on August 8 and there was no buy-in. Next year? "For sure," said Chapple-Hyam, "If he's not sold."

Although Chapple-Hyam has had her licence less than a year she has always been a trainer in waiting.

Adam Sangster, son of the late Robert Sangster and owner of Swettenham Stud at Nagambie in Victoria, said yesterday that his father used to say if he wanted to know how a horse was going "he would ask Jane because she was the most clued up". -- With PA

© 2006 The Age

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