For a split second on the famous Royal Randwick rise, a jockey is aiming for a narrowing gap and, in racing parlance, the door is about to shut.
Craig Williams has a choice to make: take it or not?
His horse, Giga Kick, is ready to burst through it and the stakes have never been higher, but it’s not an exaggeration to say these decisions, which riders make hundreds of times around Australia each day, are life and death.
He waits until the perfect moment and screeches into the clear.
“He’s just a special kid,” his father Allan says. “All my kids are good, but he can do different things that others can’t.”
Williams snr is not talking about Craig’s decision in the pigskin, and winning The Everest on a young horse for a little-known trainer 18 years the jockey’s junior. That achievement is a distant second.
Craig Williams after victory in The Everest.Credit:Getty
He’s talking about how his son and Craig’s wife Larysa have taken it upon themselves to organise aid for war-torn Ukraine this year, making several visits to personally drop humanitarian and first aid supplies.
As soon as he jumps off Giga Kick, Williams starts talking about the effect this year has had on him. He’s seen horrors you wouldn’t wish on anyone. Larysa’s parents remain in Ukraine. They’ve seen millions of Ukrainians displaced.
“You say it’s been an emotional year and that’s pretty accurate,” Williams says. “But it’s been a profound life-changing experience. My day [job] is as a jockey, and I love it. I make people happy or unhappy, profitable or not profitable, but what we’re doing over there … we’re saving lives in Ukraine.”
Craig’s mother Glenda and Allan have also made a visit to Ukraine. They say they were “lucky” to go with them. They crossed the border from Poland a day after Russia shelled the town they planned to visit.
“It’s real,” Allan says. “It’s devastating, but it’s real.”
Williams has encouraged the racing industry to chip in, and his next freight will be delivered in November with help from the Australian Defence Force and Rotary Australia. He might be the only man able to bring the factional racing industry together.
Few saw his win on the unbeaten Giga Kick coming, the three-year-old prepared by 27-year-old Clayton Douglas, who mowed down Private Eye with the world’s best sprinter Nature Strip weakening late into fourth.
The result was Victoria’s way of saying it can still have a say in The Everest.
“When I spoke to, firstly, my team after he won at Caulfield, I said, ‘This horse can win The Everest’,” Williams says. “I just didn’t think it would be a month-and-a-half later.”
The Everest has a wicked sense of humour, even if trainer John O’Shea couldn’t see the funny side.
Just after dawn on Saturday morning, the race’s second favourite, Lost And Running, was put through a veterinary examination after developing a skin irritation on Friday. A few hours later, he was lame and out of The Everest.
Slotholder Tabcorp had to find a new representative, hours out from the race, and in a story only racing could tell, opted for a horse once known in a previous life as the ultimate money muncher.
The shorter in betting Kementari used to start, the more he used to get beat. They joked about building him a statue at Tabcorp headquarters because he was so good at lining the pockets of their shareholders.
He went to stud as a stallion a few years ago, shot mostly blanks, so the Godolphin empire gelded him and set about winning more races. And here was the bookmaker who loved watching him get beat, desperately hoping he’d run well for a return on their investment.
He finished a respectable seventh.
But no one finished the day with more respect than The Everest’s winning jockey, who is in the business of saving lives as well as changing them in about 70 seconds.
As he signed off his television interview, in which he spoke about Giga Kick’s will to win, he almost had to stop himself to deliver a message to people who really need to hear it. He must have hoped they stayed around for the last race, which Williams also won. The horse? Hope In Your Heart.
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