What a comeback! Patience and persistence at its best

Four years on from his last race start – and nearly a decade since his trainer last harnessed up a runner – Santa Casa Beach (Somebeachsomewhere) stormed back into the winner’s list at Horsham yesterday (Oct 6).

The eight-year-old gelding, trained at Swan Hill by David Wills, was first-up since 2021 and produced a gritty front-running performance in the Gold Central Victorian Pace, driven to perfection by young western district reinsman Lochie Cooke.

“It was just fantastic – I am just so pleased for the horse more than anything. He’s pulled up terrific, even better than I thought,” Wills said.

As he made the journey to Horsham, Wills wouldn’t have known whether to feel elation, relief or deep anxiety that, after a rehabilitation program of more than 12 months, he was finally heading down the highway to the races with the former Metropolitan-class performer.

In his four-year-old season in 2021, Santa Casa Beach strung together four Melton wins on end, for trainer Russell Jack, accounting for handy Gr 1 performers including Bulletproof Boy, Always Fast, Shadow Sax, Boncel Benjamin, Rackemup Tigerpie and Majestic Cruiser.

But it was after that run of career-best form that Santa Casa Beach went amiss, later found to be suffering a pedal bone injury.

Bred and owned by former Swan Hill couple Todd and Wendy Rivett, Santa Casa Beach was taken home to their property and retired.

“He could have been treated and perhaps kept racing for a bit longer, but Todd and Wendy are the sort of people who want to look after the horse and didn’t want him to break down completely.  So they just put him out in the paddock,” Wills said.

“One day I was out at Todd’s helping him with a young one, and he told me he had a couple of horses for me to look at. I asked him who the big one was – it was Santa Casa Beach and he offered him to me if I wanted to have a go with him.”

David and his wife Sara followed through and bought the horse.

“Right from the word go I thought ‘do it right or not at all’, to give him a long rehab and give him the best chance to come good.  It was a long rehab alright – over 12 months!” Wills said.

“Every morning I’d get up at 4 am to work him before I went to work.  I started lunging him in my round hard in heavy sand. He’d work both ways and I built that up to 20 minutes, then 30 minutes, then 40 and I did that for seven or eight months.  I didn’t even put him in the cart in all that time,” he said.

“I spoke to (leading equine vet) Jim Vasey, who’d seen the horse’s injury originally, to get a bit of advice from him.  I told him what I was doing, and he asked me if he’d ever taken a lame step with me.  I said no – and his advice was ‘shut your eyes and keep on going’!  Well, what can you do? He’s the best there is, so we pressed on!”

Santa Casa Beach progressed to jogwork in the cart, then sand galloping to build the miles into his legs, before finally being given comfortable solo hopple work on the Swan Hill track.

“And just for the past six weeks, I’ve been thinking everything seems good – so we will give it a go and see what happens,” Wills said.

The pair won a trial at Echuca in their only official outing before Monday’s race.

“He won the trial pretty easily, but it was a bit of the unknown, coming to the races, though.  He was pretty fit, but it’s like footy, ‘fit’ isn’t always the same as ‘match fit’.  But I did think if he could find the front at Horsham that would be his best chance.”

Watch the replay here:

Wills said Swan Hill farrier Steven Jenvey had been an enormous help, and Sara and their son Matthew had also supported him on the long journey with the horse.

“I started off in the gallops wanting to be a jockey and had some good times there – I strapped Sobar when he won the Caulfield Cup and I loved it.  But I got too heavy, so I started junior driving in harness racing, working with Trevor Spry at Yarra Glen.

“I came to Swan Hill to play footy for Woorinen, met Sara, and I stayed!”

Fittingly, Santa Casa Beach’s former owner Rivett was also trackside to watch the horse’s successful comeback.

“He was just absolutely rapt for the horse and for us.  Santa Casa Beach was good to Todd and to see his win today was pretty special for all of us.”

From Terry Gange for Harnesslink