Northern Lights Aim For Southern Success

Iain Jardine with Nakeeta and Glyn Schofield | Emma Berry

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MELBOURNE, Australia–The website for Iain Jardine Racing has only just gone live and it could have quite a launch story this Tuesday if stable star Nakeeta (GB) (Sixties Icon {GB}) can add to his Ebor win with victory in Australia's biggest staying race.

Melbourne Cup fever may be sweeping Victoria but Jardine, a softly-spoken former jump jockey from Hawick in the Scottish Borders, appears not to be letting the excitement get to him, despite his historic appearance in Australia with the first Scottish-trained runner at the Spring Carnival.

He is not the only Scottish trainer in town, however, as Hughie Morrison and Hugo Palmer hail from north of Hadrian's Wall, though both have chosen to base their training activities in England.

“The Scottish Borders have a great horsey tradition, there's plenty of hunting, common riding, pony racing and the like,” says Jardine after watching Nakeeta through his morning exercise at Werribee, where he is stabled alongside the Joseph O'Brien-trained pair of US Army Ranger (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) and Rekindling (GB) (High Chaparral {Ire}).

He continues, “If you're a young man from Hawick you're mostly either going to play rugby or become a jockey, depending on how big you are.”

Though on the tall side, the willowy Jardine chose the latter and spent his early years in racing, but not before his traditional Borders apprenticeship of common riding and pony racing. Several stints in Yorkshire working for trainers Mick Naughton and Ferdy Murphy were sandwiched around a spell as conditional jockey to Len Lungo at the Carrutherstown base of Hetlandhill where Jardine now trains himself, his good season having ensured that his stable now numbers 70.

“That's a good number for me and it's a mix of flat horses and jumpers,” he says. “At that level I can keep an eye on all of them, I don't want it to get any bigger but we've got plenty to get on with. Getting above that I feel I could start to lose the individual touch for what I want to do with each horse.”

He adds, “The stable is very relaxed. We're on our own up there and can use the gallop whenever we want. We have a good routine–first lot goes out at 8am.”

By that time of day most Australian trainers will be thinking about lunch, having clocked in for work around 4am. But Jardine seems confident that he won't be trailing around behind the locals come Cup day and aims to go one better than the previous year's Ebor winner, Heartbreak City (Fr) (Lando {Ger}), who was beaten just a head by Almandin (Ger) (Monsun {Ger}).

“I think Nakeeta definitely has the right profile–Heartbeak City almost did the deed last year and we're following in his footsteps and just hoping to run a big race. I do know that he will run well,” says the trainer with quiet certainty. “He's taken the travelling and all the preliminaries really well and in the build-up to the race his work has been really good.”

While Jardine still rides work himself, it is his stable amateur Bruce Lynn who rides Nakeeta daily and was charged with seeing him through quarantine in Newmarket and Werribee. Jockey Glyn Schofield acquainted himself with Nakeeta at the training track on Thursday but Lynn was back on board come Friday as the finishing touches are put to the 6-year-old's preparation for the Flemington showdown.

Jardine says, “Nakeeta seems to be coping with being trained on his own here. I don't know what other trainers do when they come here but I've just tried to do my own thing and keep his regime as close to it is at home. It worked for the Ebor so let's hope it works in Australia.”

Nakeeta started his life with trainer Mick Channon, for whom he raced five times as a juvenile for one runner-up finish. Catalogued to sell at Ascot at the end of 2013, he was withdrawn from the sale when Jardine made Channon a private offer on behalf of owners Alex and Janet Card. Though Channon may now be ruing losing a globetrotting campaigner, he can at least bask in some reflected glory as he is also Nakeeta's breeder and stands the horse's Classic-winning sire Sixties Icon at his Norman Court Stud in Wilthsire.

“A trainer I used to ride for called Billy McEwan rang me and said he'd seen Nakeeta in the catalogue and I should have a look at him,” Jardine recalls. “He hadn't had many runs and we thought he'd stay a bit and should be ok.

“I like training staying horses in particular. Initially we thought Nakeeta might make a hurdler as well but he's turned out to be decent so we don't want to risk him over hurdles. He's been a good buy and it's hard to get hold of horses like this–there aren't too many out there.”

Jardine and Nakeeta are in good company in Melbourne among a trio of horses trained by the doyen of dual-purpose trainers, Willie Mullins, not to mention Aidan O'Brien, who, before he became a record-breaking flat trainer also plied his trade as a jump jockey and trained the legendary Istabraq (Ire) (Sadler's Wells) to win three Champion Hurdles.

How, then, does Jardine feel in such an esteemed gathering during the countdown to one of the world's iconic races in a vibrant city 10,000 miles away from his peaceful Scottish base?

“It's great to be part of it and I'd like to think that we're on the way up. We've had a great season on the flat this year and this horse has earned the right to be here,” he says.

“Apart from taking horses to Ireland I haven't really dome much travelling, so this is my first international runner. To be in the Melbourne Cup is a real privilege, firstly to have a horse this good and secondly just to be here. I didn't realise until I was actually here what a big deal they make of it but it's unbelievable.”

Despite his English roots, Nakeeta is now very much a son of Scotland. In a year that has already seen a Scottish-trained Grand National winner, a Melbourne Cup victory would help to promote the merits of a proud racing nation on a much wider international scale.

As Jardine allows himself to imagine a scenario that has doubtless run through his mind many times since his breakthrough Ebor win, he says almost wistfully, “Wouldn't that be something?”

Indeed it would.

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