It was virtually a carbon copy of the previous year. Vo Rogue led from the jump and pounded down the Sandown straight to win the race for the third year running. When Vo Rogue turned the tables on Super Impose in the C F Orr Stakes in 1989 the critics had their answer. Victory Rail, so named because he was born the day the Japanese surrendered in the Pacific, had spent much of his life defying conventional wisdom. He stood 16.3 hands, with an intelligent head, huge shoulders, plenty of rein and marvellous legs.Īccording to Rail it was the length of his stride that made him a champion, it also threw him off balance on rain-affected tracks, but on a firm surface he could foot it with the champions of any era.Īfter a superb five-year-old season which netted him six Group victories and more than $1 million in prizemoney, Vo Rogue returned to win four more races as a six-year-old, including group one victories in the George Main Stakes (1600m) at Randwick and the Australian Cup (2000m) at Flemington, and his third successive Group Two C F Orr Stakes (1400m) at Sandown. “He tries hard and he makes sure they get their money’s worth.”Īlthough his looks were unorthodox and his parents relatively undistinguished, a closer inspection gave clues to Vo Rogue’s ability. “The people loved him not only because of his front running style, they loved him because of his will to win, “Rail said. He won from 1000 to 2040 metres in every mainland state except South Australia, where he never started.īy the end of his career the six-year-old he had won 26 races and placed in 18 of his 68 starts. Not since Gunsynd in the early 1970s had a racehorse so captured the Australian imagination. The punters knew what they were getting and the challengers knew what they had to do to beat him. It was a race tactic which would set everybody’s blood pumping a little faster. Most of all he liked to run in front, with huge ground-eating strides that would break his opponents’ hearts. It might all sound a little eccentric, but there’s no denying Vo Rogue could run, like the wind. He was not hosed or shampooed, he was fed oats, lucerne, tick beans, sun-flower seeds and calf manna, with very little corn. He was never near a syringe or a vitamin supplement, and if his trainer Vic Rail had had his way, his hooves would never have felt the farrier’s blow. With a thin, patchy coat that needed sump oil to protect it from the Queensland sun. Nicknamed Erky, he was always a curious looking animal. Vo Rogue was one of those gallopers for which the description “freak” is no exaggeration, the product of parents who never won a race between them, Vo Rogue fetched the princely sum of $5,000 as a weanling, which looked no bargain as he grew into a slow and ungainly juvenile with little interest in running. No heart! Six years later the little bay with no heart in him had 16 Group wins, a string of track records, a devoted public and a small matter of $2.93 million in the bank. When Vo Rogue was gelded the veterinary surgeon who performed the operation looked down at his 11-month old patient struggling to come out of the anaesthetic, and decided the horse had no heart in him.
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