Willaidow’s tough-as-nails spirit delivers Southern Cross Stakes

He may have cost just $7000 and had a leg held together with pins, but it’s Willaidow’s gritty determination on the track that has trainer Marc Conners dreaming big for the six-year-old gelding.

Willaidow proved his mettle again at Rosehill on Saturday, fending off all challengers in the Group Three Southern Cross Stakes (1200m), claiming his first black-type win and pushing his prizemoney earnings beyond $580,000.

This remarkable victory is just the latest chapter in Willaidow’s extraordinary journey after Conners purchased him sight unseen from an online dispersal sale.

“He was an untried three-year-old gelding who had never been broken in so nobody had had their hands on him,” Conners recalled. “He was by Shamus Award, so a little bit of pedigree. I’ve done it half a dozen times since and they’ve done nothing. That’s what this game is about. There are no rules.”

Though Willaidow was a bargain buy, his career nearly ended before it truly began. After securing his second win at Nowra, he broke his leg. Conners’ immediate reaction?

“Lucky he won because it’s a $10,000 operation,” he quipped. “He’s got three pins in his leg. It was a cannon bone. They say it heals very well and it’s highly successful.”

Indeed, the procedure has proven successful for Willaidow, who has since won another six races and continues to impress.

While Conners hasn’t outlined a strict program for Willaidow this autumn, he admits he would love to see the horse race in a prestigious event like the Doncaster Mile.

“There is no set plan. There are plenty of options for him. We will take our time, every two or three weeks there is a race and I think he will be better when he gets to 1400 and 1500,” Conners said. “I’d love to get him to the Doncaster, but there are other options. He loves the wet tracks and if it happens to rain in Melbourne, he might go to Melbourne.”

Conners added that Willaidow’s performance at home is not always an accurate gauge of his race-day potential. Despite his lackluster trackwork, the gelding’s greatest asset is his fighting spirit.

“He’s a hard horse to get a line on because he’s a terrible trackworker, he falls-in in his trials, he sweats up badly before a race, he gets around like a crab. But he gets out there on race day and just finds another gear,” Conners said. “He wants a fight. The closer they get to him, the harder he fights.”

Regular jockey James McDonald was unable to make Willaidow’s 54kg weight, so Tyler Schiller took the ride and was pleasantly surprised by the horse’s resilience under pressure.

“I thought he was all-out the last 100 but he just kept finding. He’s so tough,” Schiller said. “The lightweight, I think it helped, but he has beaten some nice horses. Some in-form horses.”

Willaidow ($4.20) scored a head victory over Iowna Merc ($8), with Brudenell ($6.50) finishing another three-quarters of a length behind in third.

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