Summer music in the mid of winter

A SPECULATIVE investment has turned windfall for a group of Pakenham accountants after the horse they part-own, Mid Summer Music, won the Group One $1million Stradbroke Handicap (1400m) at Eagle Farm recently.
Business partners Jason and Neil Robertson, Hayden Smart and David Wouters have made a wise choice in their first venture into the sport.
It has been a magic-carpet ride for the first-time owners, who forked out just $1500 for a 10per cent share in the mare, with the Stradbroke win taking her career prizemoney beyond the $1.27million mark.
If you pigeon-hole these bean-counters as a staid, dull, old-fashioned lot, then think again, because when Luke Nolen (yes… the same Luke Nolen who had a brain fade on Black Caviar at Ascot on Saturday night) drove the Peter Moody trained galloper to the line, all hell broke loose.
“It was unexpected, Peter and Luke gave the horse no chance, they thought she needed it a bit wetter but when she crossed the line we went mad, we all went nuts,” Jason Robertson said.
“It was just a great day, a cracker of a day; nine of us went up for the race. One minute we were sitting in a bar and the next minute we’re on the podium with a magnum of champagne.
“It was just unbelievable.”
Mid Summer Music is lightly raced. The six-year-old mare, who was foaled in October 2005, didn’t race until February 2010. It was at her first start at Warracknabeal – in which she won by almost five lengths – that confused the first-time owners even more about the racing industry.
“We thought ‘this is alright’, but Peter Moody wasn’t convinced, he was talking about sending her to a country trainer. I think she ran a slow time or something,” Robertson said.
“Linda Meech (jockey) convinced him to keep her and the rest is history.”
Mid Summer Music paid a tick over 30/1 in the Stradbroke, which was luxury odds when you look closely at the horses she has been competitive with.
A second to Cox Plate winner Pinker Pinker, a second to Australia’s most exciting up and coming horse, Atlantic Jewel, and a third to her mighty stablemate, Black Caviar, are proof of her credentials.
Moody has convinced the group to reinvest a little, but Robertson realises it might be all downhill from here.
“We’ve got two others with the Moody’s now, and we’ve got our fingers crossed,” Robertson said.
“But it can’t be that easy. Can it?”