O'Halloran's special Randwick breakthrough

STEVE O’Halloran’s Royal Randwick breakthrough yesterday with stable star Mal Coupe ticked one box – with an assurance that another important one can soon be ticked as well.

Image Courtesy of Bradley Photos

The Hawkesbury trainer’s first-up victory with $3.40 favorite Mal Coupe – the gelding extended his picket fence to four wins – in the Midway Benchmark 72 Handicap (1000m) - carried extra significance as he spent 17 years at headquarters as one of Gai Waterhouse’s trusted lieutenants (and in the latter part with her co-trainer Adrian Bott as well), and was closely associated with many of the stable’s Golden Slipper winners.

“Having spent so much time at Randwick, it was very special to win my first race there,” O’Halloran said today.

“Of course I would like to be racing at Randwick on a regular basis, but you need the right horse to be going there.”

Mal Coupe clearly is the right horse.

Ridden for the first time yesterday by James McDonald, Mal Coupe bounced out of the gates and seemingly had the race won from the jump.

In all-provincial finish, he defeated Kembla Grange trainer Kerry Parker’s Let’s Go Again ($10), with fellow Hawkesbury trainers Terry Croft and Marc Chevalier having the third and fourth placegetters Zoutastic ($14) and Everyone’s A Star ($9.50) respectively.

O’Halloran has done a superb job with Mal Coupe, who got his name (French translated to English means badly cut) after crashing through a fence at his breeder-owners’ property near Orange as a young horse.

His previous three wins were all on wet tracks, and this was his first on a good surface.

“Mal Coupe has come back a bit stronger, and I was fairly confident he would handle the good track,” O’Halloran said.

“His last trial when second to Celui (a first-up Randwick winner a week earlier) on a good track was excellent, and a good pointer to his first-up prospects,” O’Halloran said.

“That has ticked that box, and James was pretty impressed with the horse.

“He told us afterwards Mal Coupe would have no problem handling 1200m (all his wins to date have been at 1000m-1100m).

“He has pulled up well from yesterday’s race and, all going well, will step up to a Benchmark 88 Handicap at Randwick in a fortnight.

“That will be another test for him, and show us if he can measure up to at least a Group 3 sprint during the autumn carnival.”

Since O’Halloran removed blinkers from Mal Coupe, the homebred has put together a brilliant record; seven starts for five wins and two seconds.

“I put blinkers on him in late 2024 for a couple of starts, but spelled him after he failed over 1400m at Canberra,” he said.

“When he came back into work, I went back to basics and started from scratch without the blinkers.

“There’s no doubt he is a much better horse than at the start of his career, and we really don’t know yet how good he is.”

O’Halloran has 12-15 horses in racing trim at present and another six youngsters being educated, and Mal Couple’s performances have underlined his skill with a horse.

“I’m definitely open to any owner wanting to give me a nice horse to train,” he concluded.

*Words by John Curtis for hawkesburyraceclub.com.au