There are bittersweet moments for rising trainer Maddie Raymond when she takes her horses for a swim each morning at Warrnambool’s tranquil Lady Bay.
The small stretch of beach on the town’s outskirts, sheltered from the harsh winds and pounding waves of the Southern Ocean, had become synonymous with seeing her dad.
Warrnambool trainer Maddie Raymond, right, with her mother, Sue, and late father, Eddie.
Each morning at the crack of dawn, Raymond and her husband, Patrick “Paddy” Bell, would transport their horses to the bitumen car park at the water’s edge and Eddie “Bomber” Raymond would then help hook them to a small row boat and tow them into the bay.
He had done it for years for different trainers, leading the snorting thoroughbreds with their ears pricked through the calming, therapeutic salt waters of the bay as part of their daily routine.
A rower in his youth, he started for Raymond’s boss, Darren Weir, and later for his daughter when she took out a licence in January 2020.
“Dad was my No.1 supporter,” Raymond said.
The late Eddie “Bomber” Raymond (left) rows a horse through Lady Bay with trainer Matthew Williams.Credit: Getty Images
“He used to come and watch race meetings with me, he would come out and feed up if we were all busy, he rowed the boat in the morning – he was a big part of it all.”
Raymond took the boat out of the water when her father passed away suddenly in July last year. Her family – mother Sue, sister Arley and brother Rhys – needed time to work through their grief.
But one of the toughest moments came months later, in December, when it was time to return to the water.
“Paddy has been rowing the boat for us now,” Raymond said. “I think the hardest part for me was the first day we put the boat back in the water and seeing Paddy row out, because you look out and you expect to see Dad.”
Raymond is a talented horsewoman with links to two of Australia’s greatest racing stories – Michelle Payne’s Melbourne Cup win, and the unbeaten Black Caviar.
As she prepared for this week’s Warrnambool May Racing Carnival, her first without her father, she reflected on her recent highs and lows.
“Everyone thought the beach would be the hard place for me and our family to be, but I just know that Dad enjoyed it down there, so it is quite a happy place,” she said.
“We go down there now on those special occasions and have a coffee and still celebrate that that’s where he was happy.
The late Eddie “Bomber” Raymond in Warrnambool’s Lady Bay with his granddaughter Clara.
“But sitting up in the pavilion and seeing the boat in the water – that was hard.”
Raymond was not from a horse background. Her father was a premiership player for Warrnambool Football Club, a talented basketballer, and loved playing golf.
Maddie Raymond (left) and Stevie Payne bring Michelle Payne and Prince Of Penzance back to scale after the 2015 Melbourne Cup.Credit: Getty Images
But her parents were lured into racing when their teenage daughter progressed from pony club to stable foreman for Weir.
It was during this period she played an integral, but lesser-known, part in the Prince Of Penzance story – the horse that carried Michelle Payne to Melbourne Cup history.
If you look at pictures of Payne’s brother, Stevie, leading his sister back to scale, you will see Raymond, wearing a red jacket and sunglasses, on the other side.
She was Prince Of Penzance’s full-time carer, riding the gelding every day in trackwork, but agreed to share duties at Flemington on Cup day because of Stevie’s special bond with his sister.
“Obviously, Stevie and Michelle had that relationship, and Stevie helped with selecting out the barrier, so it just fell into place that Stevie was strapper on the day,” Raymond said.
“But I was happy. Stevie probably likes a bit of limelight, whereas I am happy to step away from it. So it worked in my favour as well.”
In the weeks after the Cup, Payne took Raymond to Bali with a group of friends as a thank-you. She even got to play herself in a cameo role in biopic Ride Like A Girl.
“I just stood there and held the horse,” Raymond said. “So, I’d say I was more of a helping hand, rather than an actress.”
If Raymond, 32, was known as a “Weiry’s girl”, her now-husband was considered a “Moody’s boy”.
Bell, 36, was a former star New Zealand apprentice who had to hang up his jockey’s boots after a broken leg undermined his battle with the weight.
Warrnambool training partnership Maddie Raymond and Patrick Bell on their wedding day. Credit: Supllied
He flew to Australia to join Peter Moody’s stable for a three-month working stint and stayed with him for eight years.
In that time, he rode Black Caviar in trackwork and travelled to the UK for the champion mare’s narrow win in the 2012 group 1 Royal Jubilee Stakes at Royal Ascot.
“I swear to God, every time we turn on Racing.com you are watching a Black Caviar documentary, so he is probably going to live in the limelight a bit more [than me],” Raymond said.
“I mean, I wouldn’t give up that [Melbourne Cup] group 1 for 25 of them, that’s for sure, but she [Black Caviar] was pretty special.”
Moody’s boy and Weiry’s girl met on a Cargo plane in 2019, travelling horses from Australia to race in Dubai – Raymond with Brave Smash for Kris Lees, and Bell accompanied Lloyd Kennewell’s Viddora.
They started dating when they came back, were married in February this year, became co-trainers on March 27 and are expecting their first child in June.
“It was a bit of a … it was unexpected,” Raymond said of the pregnancy. “It was very close to the time that I lost my dad, so it was definitely, I think, for myself and my family… it has given us some joy to look forward to in what was a pretty dark time.”
Raymond said she was not as “agile as I used to be” with the baby almost due, but the stable would run as normal.
The Maddie Raymond-trained Rolls wins the 2023 Warrnambool Cup for jockey Harry Grace.Credit: Getty Images
“Paddy rides most of the work now, so none of that changes, and I am still able to do the organising, you know, the day-to-day training sheets of the horses, whether I am pregnant or I have got a baby beside me,” she said.
Raymond and Bell work about 20 horses in their boutique stable.
“I worked with Black Heart Bart, Kings Will Dream, Voodoo Lad, Lucky Hustler and Humidor – so both of us come from working with genuine group 1 horses to where you are starting off from scratch. So the bar is set very high,” she said.
“We had one trial this morning and Paddy said, ‘This is one of the best horses we’ve got, but it is no Black Caviar’. But we hope one day.”
Raymond said one of their best chances at Warrnambool over the coming three days would be Rolls in the 1700-metre event on Tuesday.
“Rolls’ first-up run in Adelaide, I thought, was absolutely huge. I think he is going as good as he’s ever been,” she said.
“The weight will be hard [61 kilograms, with jockey Jaylah Kennedy claiming 1.5kg], but he’s still going super.”
But before she sets foot on track this week, she will have been back to Lady Bay. No doubt, talking about her father.
“Everyone still says to me, ‘We loved going down and seeing him every morning – he was always so happy to see everyone and have a chat’,” she said.
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