Catch A Wave's 2024 Nullarbor Win Photo by Pacepix
IT was a win "written in the stars" in the stars as the man who made it possible watched from the intensive care unit in hospital after open-heart surgery.
That's just part of the emotion and theatre behind Victorian raider Catch A Wave's win in Australia's second-richest race, the $A1.25mil Group 1 Nullarbor at Perth's Gloucester Park.
Last Friday night's race had it all. It also gave superstar driver Kate Gath the most satisfying win of her stellar career and filled one of few voids in trainer Andy Gath's CV by providing his first Group 1 win in Western Australia, the only of Australia's six racing states where he had yet to win at the highest level.
This is all set against the backdrop of Catch A Watch's late owner, Richard Matthews, who passed away in September 2022, while the best pacer he'd ever had was just starting his pathway to super stardom and now more than $A2 million in career earnings.
As Matthews' wife, Pauline, read the local paper on the morning of the race, she looked to the horoscopes for inspiration.
"Mine didn't say much, but I couldn't believe it when I read Richard's. He's a Taurus, and it said: 'One never quite knows when life is going to open the throttle and get us moving. Your will is on tap. Ride the wave'." she said.
"I had to cut it out and bring it to the track with me."
Matthews, who rarely goes to the races, even at home in Victoria, since Richard's passing, made the three-hour drive and four-hour plane flight from her property near Port Fairy in Victoria across to Perth.
"Richard loved this horse. He was the one he'd been waiting for her," Matthews said.
"The day before he passed (away), he rang Andy (Gath) and said don't let anyone sell this horse; keep him racing. He must have thought I'd let the horse go because he always loved the pacers, and I loved the trotters."
"It's been a hard slog without Richard; we all miss him every day. And none of us realised how much time and work he put into the horses. It's been a hard slog without him because he did all that stuff."
"I didn't know one end of a horse from the other when we started out breeding and racing them, but being a nurse, I wanted to work with the mums (mares) and babies (foals), so I did a course and really loved it."
"He got to see the horse win some big races, but you certainly have mixed emotions seeing him go on to win races like this and the Miracle Mile after we lost Richard. Then again, he's a living legacy to Richard, and the whole family comes together around him every time he races."
The Nullarbor was never on Catch A Wave's radar until less than a month before it was run.
Andy and Kate Gath were focused solely on a defence of the $A1mil Miracle Mile title "Tex" (Catch A Wave's stable name) won in March, last year.
But an untimely injury scare changed everything.
Just after Catch A Wave passed the finishing line when second in the Geelong Rocket on February 23, Kate Gath feared he had broken down badly.
"And it kept getting worse after the race," she said.
"He couldn't put one foot on the ground. We were sure he'd broken something."
Remarkably, scans and x-rays the following day revealed a corn and abscess was the problem.
"They removed the corn and drained the abscess and he recovered within days," Andy Gath said.
"But it ended our Miracle Mile hopes and didn't know what to do with him. There were the two slot races coming up, and at first I wanted him to go to New Zealand (Race By Grins), but all the slots were taken."
Enter passionate harness owner and supporter Rob Tomlinson, who had a slot with friends and business colleagues in the Nullarbor under the Regency Foods Australia banner.
Still with his slot open, Tomlinson heard murmurs. Catch A Wave could be "gettable", and he rang Gath.
Within days, the deal was done.
"We couldn't have asked for a better (slot) partner," Gath said,
"Rob and the team have been wonderful to deal with. They promoted the horse and race amazingly well in the build-up. They've added to the whole thrill of the win."
But Tomlinson himself wasn't trackside. Just three days earlier, he'd had open heart surgery – for the third time in the past two years. That's on top of the three sessions of dialysis he has each week for his kidney issues.
"Rob was having surgery when they drew the barriers (last Tuesday)," his wife Michelle said.
"He's come through it remarkably well and watched the race in ICU at the hospital."
"We are just so thrilled to be part of a win like this with some beautiful people … Kate, Andy, Pauline and all her family. This is everything good about slot racing when you can bring people together like this."
Just 12 months earlier, in the inaugural Nullarbor, the Tomlinson’s were major shareholders in hot favourite Magnificent Storm, which turned out to be a horror story. Driver Aldo Cortopassi was widely condemned for his drive, and Magnificent Storm finished a luckless and heartbreaking seventh.
The gelding won eight of 10 WA starts (and ran second in the other two) after that Nullarbor and was favourite to atone this year before a nasty knee infection threatened his life and ended dreams of redemption.
"This race has certainly been an emotional roller-coaster for us, and it's only two years old," Michelle said.
Kate Gath, who boasts over 2100 career wins and 56 at Group level, said the win was the most satisfying of her career.
"I felt it was my biggest challenge as a driver. The racing is just so different over here. They drive so aggressively, not like anything I'd seen or been part of before. I knew it, so I looked back at a lot of races, and I'm so glad we came over the week before so I could have some drives here. It was also great to give 'Tex' that race here the week before. We both benefited a lot from it," she said.
"When you add that to sharing it with Pauline and the family and what such great partners Rob (Tomlinson) and all his crew were, it's one of the really special nights."
The race itself delivered every inch of the drama forecast by some of the key combatants through the media in the lead-up.
Young gun Jack Callaghan vowed to hold the lead on Spirit Of St Louis, who meekly handed up the front a year earlier when second in the Nullarbor, and he did, leaving easing race favourite Hot And Treacherous to sit parked outside. They blasted through a record lead time in the 2536-metre race.
Star local stay Minstrel made a midrace move to sit parked and maintain the hot tempo.
"I couldn't have scripted it better," Kate Gath said.
"That's how we've always wanted to drive him, do nothing early, let him settle and come with one run, but you need the pace on to win that way and it certainly was."
Champion local driver Gary Hall Jr, driving exciting young pacer Never Ending, added more spice when he shoved Hot And Treacherous three-wide with a lap to go around the half-mile circuit.
"That was even better for me because I then got a trail into it on the back of Hot And Treacherous, who thankfully kept going long enough to take me right into the action," Kate said.
"I knew I had to be mindful of him (Hall Jr) trying to do the same thing to me, so when I got up alongside him, I really urged Tex along to make sure there were no gaps, no chance for him to hoist me wide."
It was the winning move for Gath and one which Hall Jr insists cost him the race. Never Ending hit a wheel, broke stride briefly and lost all chance.
The stewards adjourned an inquiry into the jostling between Gath and Hall Jr on the final bend until next Friday night.
Catch A Wave's win was his 21st from just 37 starts and took his career earnings to $1,799,588.
The five-year-old will stay in Perth for next Friday night's $A300,000 Group 1 Fremantle Cup and then return home for a spell.
