Clayton Douglas has soared over the fences at Warrnambool and skipped into the winner’s stall at Randwick on Everest day, but ask his father Vic and there is one day he remembers above all when his son was just an 18-year-old.
The image Vic remembers is Clayton in excruciating pain on a bed in Warragul Hospital after copping a double-barrelled kick to the stomach by a horse.
Giga Kick powers away to win The Everest in 2022.Credit: Getty
“It just wasn’t his time to go,” Vic said remembering that day.
The horseman in Clayton, who prepares Everest-winning sprinter Giga Kick these days, also remembers the day. “It got me good,” he says. “I was in a bit of trouble.”
Vic was called to the hospital after the incident 10 years ago, which became “the most confronting and happiest day” of his life.
“We had driven an hour to get there and Clayton was in so much pain when we arrived,” Vic said. “It was hard to watch.
“The doctors were there and said we can’t airlift him to Melbourne because we don’t think he’ll make it. We were absolutely helpless.
“Instead the doctor from Melbourne was flying up to Warragul because he was in such a bad way.
“The doctor walked in, he flicked the locks off the bed and said ‘where’s the theatre? I need to get him in there now’.
“He was pushing the bed himself, so I knew it was bad as we ran after him.
“He came out a couple of hours later and said ‘he’s fixed’. They had cut away a stack of Clayton’s bowel, but he was alive.”
Clayton Douglas and Giga Kick have each overcome adversity to get back to try and win a second Everest.Credit: Brook Mitchell/SMH
Douglas has made the most of his second chance and found a kindred spirit in Giga Kick.
As a jockey, Douglas won Australia’s biggest jumps race, the Grand Annual, twice on Gold Medals and has an Everest trophy as trainer. He is back at Randwick attempting to do it again with Giga Kick, which, like his trainer, is lucky to be there.
“As a weanling, he had bowel surgery as well,” Clayton said. “It was before I got him, but they had to cut away a fair bit of it.
“We have both had to overcome a bit of adversity with injuries to get here.
“I was very lucky and so he. We are brothers really, but I don’t know which one of us lost more of our bowels.
“But we have both come through it all right.”
There is a bond between Douglas and Giga Kick that comes from sharing so much time together.
After his 2022 Everest win, Giga Kick was expected to return as The Everest favourite last year. However, he tore a hamstring off the bone as he began his path to Randwick last year.
“It was such an unusual injury that we had to let him recover and not do too much with him,” Douglas said. “It was, effectively, to where all the power comes from for a sprinter.
“There was a lot of walking but only flat surfaces. We just had to be careful with him.
“It was first getting back to fitness and then The Everest was the goal.”
Giga Kick has had two runs back in preparation for The Everest and was unplaced, but not far away, in the Concorde Stakes and Premiere Stakes. It was always the way Douglas wanted to get to The Everest.
“I have thought his two runs have been good and if he wasn’t Giga Kick I think people wouldn’t be marking him so hard,” Douglas said. “He is an older horse now and has a few more miles on the clock, so it takes a little longer to get him fit.
“I think he is back to best now.”
The odds say Giga Kick is a $15 chance to join Redzel as two-time Everest, but that have never counted for much for Douglas. Champion jockey Mark Zahra joins the team for The Everest, which adds to Douglas’ confidence
“He is such a patient rider and that is what I think Giga Kick needs,” Douglas said. “He can sit back a little more, let him be the explosive sprinter he is.
“Mark liked what felt in a gallop on Tuesday, and as we pulled up together he looked at me and I knew I had Giga Kick right.”
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