3 minute read
The first thing Penny Yan thought to do when Racing to Win was put to rest back in early September was find the DVD player, and sitting beside her sister Susan, take a timely trip down memory lane.
Penny, along with her husband Trevor Stuckey, who passed away in 2020, bought a steely grey yearling for just $40,000 in 2004.
"The night he was put to sleep we put in the DVDs of all of his wins, it was lovely to watch them all back, see the crowds, the atmosphere," said Penny.
"I still clearly remember buying him, we were at the Inglis Easter sales under the big tree with John O'Shea and I had always loved greys.
"His x-rays showed that there was a tiny problem in his shin, apparently a Hong Kong buyer was interested in him up until that point.
"The bidding started, and John got him cheap; it all started from there. My darling departed husband, they called him 'Lucky Stuckey', that ended up being just one of those lucky moments."
At just his ninth career start, Racing to Win won the first of his five Group Ones, the George Ryder Stakes. His Doncaster Mile win at his subsequent start is the one that Penny reminisces over the most, however.
"I can still remember the feeling of standing in the enclosure when the horse came back in and the rug was being put on him, which I've still got, and looking up at the stands and thinking that this is just the best moment," recalled Penny. "I'm tingling now just thinking about it.
"Before his first race at Canterbury I looked around and half of the stable staff were there, and I thought it was a bit strange.
"Word must have got around that he was expected to win or they knew what he was going to do."
Racing to Win won, of course, and was on his way to amassing $3.7 million in prizemoney, winning 13 of his 30 starts.
"He was a lovely animal, we had no problems with him and that little issue in his shin, whatever it was, never caused any hassles," said Penny.
Racing to Win was also the catalyst for the 'To Win' naming conventional across of all Penny and Trevor's horses.
"Trevor was in love with the name. He was a bookmaker once upon a time so he loved to have a bet, and he would say, 'they race to win not to lose," said Penny.
"We thought we can't have them all start with 'R' as we'll run out of names so we decided that the ones we bred would start with an 'R' (with the exception of Racing to Win) and those we bought started with 'S'.
"We had Reigning to Win at the same time as Racing to Win but the problem is that all of these good horses were gelded!
"We had to wait all those years to get Shooting to Win who we had with Peter Snowden.
"When Trevor passed away we had a stable of about six racing, a couple of broodmares and a few yearlings but everything had to be sold.
"The good news is that I decided to keep racing and I still have the colours."
In retirement, Racing to Win lived out his days at Wild Oaks Farm in the Camden Valley, owned by Julia Ritchie, the Vice Chair of the Australian Turf Club, and it's where he is buried under a tree.
"It's lovely that when we want to visit him we can, which is making me all teary, we couldn't go down before they put him to sleep because of the lockdown restrictions," said Penny.
"He was such a clever, intelligent horse, he was probably pretty bored in his retirement, I would have liked for him to have become a police horse or a clerk of the course.
"He had company all the time at Wild Oaks though, which is horse heaven, he even had a wombat for company in his last couple of years, it would run around his yard."
Penny, who turns 80 next year, recently bought a Mustang, but no, it's not grey.
"It's white and has a horse on the front, doesn't it? It's not quite as fast as my boy (Racing to Win) was but it's fast enough for me and it'll get me to the races," she said.
