TWO TRAINERS, ONE FAMILY, TWO FILLIES, ONE MISSION

SOUTH Australian-based trainer Leon Macdonald has won a host of major races around Australia during a long and successful training career but winning the Schweppes Thousand Guineas at Caulfield on Wednesday will have extra significance.

Training partnerships have been part of the racing landscape for almost five years in Victoria but when the 2009/2010 racing season commenced, Macdonald and his son-in-law, Andrew Gluyas, were the first official training partnership licensed in South Australia.

Gluyas, 38, has been working for Macdonald on and off since he was 14 years old but „officially? met his wife, and Macdonald?s youngest daughter Susan, while attending Sacred Heart College in Adelaide.

Macdonald and Gluyas will have a strong hand in Wednesday?s $503,000 Group One Schweppes Thousand Guineas with a two-pronged attack.

They will saddle up in-form fillies, Majestic Music and Miss With Attitude with Macdonald aiming to win his second Thousand Guineas following the success of Serious Speed, ridden by Danny Nikolic, in 2007.

For many years, Macdonald has consistently finished among the leading trainers in South Australia and has always ventured across the border with competitive horses that have won a suite of feature races.

Most recently, the new partnership were preparing for their own piece of history and a famous Cup for the trophy cabinet.

One-time Melbourne Cup favourite, Rebel Raider, who won the Victoria Derby last Spring before heading back to Adelaide to claim his home-town Derby in May, was meant to be the major Melbourne Spring Carnival hope for the Macdonald/Gluyas combination before sustaining a serious leg injury in September which ended his campaign.

If either filly could be first past the post on Wednesday in the Thousand Guineas, it would provide some consolation to what might have been a crowning moment in Macdonald?s career and an amazing springboard for the career of his son-in-law.

Macdonald?s astute ability to place horses where they can win has seen him win feature races in nearly every state.

Gold Guru, a three-time Group One winner, put Macdonald on the national racing map in 1998 with victories in the Australian Guineas, the Ranvet Stakes and AJC Derby of that year. He also won three Group Two races on his way to earning $2,454,860 in career prize money. Gold Guru won black-type races in three states.

Umrum, by Umatilla, was the winner of back-to-back Toorak Handicaps (1999 & 2000) at Caulfield in a career spanning eight years, 81 starts, 14 victories , 20 minor placings, black-type wins in South Australia, Victoria, Western Australia and Tasmania and yielded $1,609,580 in prize money.
By his own admission, these are the two best horses Macdonald has trained.

“Most definitely, they would be the two. Obviously Serious Speed won the Thousand Guineas and Dilly Dally won the TJ Smith but they weren't quite in their class. I don't even think even Rebel Raider is in their class, they were just class horses,” Macdonald claimed.

The impressive race records of these two stable stars began together – almost locked together – on the same day in the same race. On 14th September 1996, Gold Guru and Umrum had their first career starts in the Fulham Park Plate over 900 metres at Victoria Park in Adelaide and they quinellaed the race with Umrum winning by the barest possible margin, a nose.

Undoubtedly, a more important quinella for the trainers from French Cotton Lodge (French Cotton won the SA Derby in 1986 for Macdonald) was that of the Lindsay Park Guineas (1600 metres) on September 12 at Morphettville when their two Thousand Guineas runners fought out the finish with Majestic Music defeating Miss With Attitude by 3 lengths.

Majestic Music, who is taking the same path as Serious Speed did in 2007, followed this Adelaide win with an impressive victory in the Group Two Edward Manifold Stakes at Flemington on October 3.

Serious Speed, who ran third in the Lindsay Park Guineas and second in the Edward Manifold Stakes in 2007, ran in the Thousand Guineas at only her sixth career start. Wednesday?s race will be Majestic Music tenth career start.

Miss With Attitude went her separate way after the Lindsay Park Guineas in September. Her next run was in the Group Two Stutt Stakes at Moonee Valley on 25 September where she ran third, beaten just over a length.

The eventual winner of the Stutt Stakes, Carrara, and second placegetter, Extra Zero, finished second and fourth respectively in Saturday's The Age Caulfield Guineas.

Sportingbet Australia currently has Majestic Music and Miss With Attitude at $10 and $14 respectively which surprises Macdonald who says he leans towards Majestic Music.

“Majestic Music is just a little bit more brilliant with a better turn of foot, the other filly is just a bit more dour,” Macdonald said.

There is a strong South Australian connection with both runners as stable rider Clare Lindop will ride the favoured runner, Majestic Music, while Streaky Bay-born Kerrin McEvoy will ride Miss With Attitude.