Eagle-eyed Richards prepares for big Saturday
Morphettville-based trainer Gordon Richards is gearing up for a bumper set of runners at his home track on Saturday, and almost all of them have one thing in common – they have outgrown their original purchase price.
Richards, who trains in partnership with Damien Moyle, currently sits 18th in the trainers’ title for South Australia with 18 wins and a further 62 top-three placings. However, the pair’s current prize-money haul sees them jump up seven places to 11th in that table – with over $1.04 million earned so far this season.
And that prize-money pot is gathered from a stable with just 23 horses. A very nice return for owners indeed, and Richards is hoping that prize-money can be improved with a third of his stable racing this weekend.
Leading the line for Richards and Moyle will be Shivouac (Bivouac), a juvenile colt that made a big first impression on his debut at the track on July 8.
Running over 1050 metres under Matthew Chadwick, the son of Darley’s red-hot sire Bivouac (Exceed And Excel) produced a dazzling display to defeat She’s Iconnic (Nicconi) by 4.8 lengths in a time of 1:03:06s.
He now lines up in Saturday’s final two-year-old only black type race of the 2025-26 campaign, the South Australia Sires’ Produce Stakes (Gr 3, 1400m), however, Richards admits that wasn’t always the plan.
“So the following Saturday there is a two and three-year-old race, the Lightning Stakes. That was our original plan, but then I looked at that and I thought, well, it’s been a pretty tough race and you run against the best of the two-year-olds and the best of the three-year-olds over a short trip,” Richards told ANZ News.
The ‘best of the two-year-olds and the best of the three-year-olds’ that Richards is referring to include the likes of champion sprinter Nature Strip (Nicconi), dual Group 1 scorer Viddora (I Am Invincible) and Group 2 winner Beau Rossa (Unencumbered), all who sit on the Lightning Stakes’ (Listed, 1050m) roll of honour in recent years.
“So it might be better to go the easier way,” Richards admitted. “He’ll get a trip, this horse, whether it’s tomorrow or not I don’t know, but it just makes it a little bit easier for him, even though it is 1400 [metres], up from 1050.
“If we could hang around the trip, ideal, but I think Nature Strip won it [the Lightning Stakes] one year and Viddura won another year so it’s not an easy race to win.
“It’s a Group 3 too this Saturday rather than a Listed race so yeah we’ll run in that. He’ll go to the paddock after that and come back for some time in the spring.”
Should he win, Shivouac would be the sixth stakes winner for Bivouac this season and third from his second crop of two-year-olds.
Shivouac was a mere $30,000 purchase for Richards from the 2025 Magic Millions Tasmanian Yearling Sale – a tried and tested sale for the trainer in recent times.
“For one thing, it’s a cheaper market,” Richards said on the Tasmanian Yearling Sale. “I bought [Flemington Listed winner] Bold Star down there and also bought Mystic Wonder. And just about everyone else I bought down there, have won races, and you don’t pay a lot for them.
“I don’t know why more people don’t go there, it’s good. I generally buy off the renowned studs there, like Grenville and Armidale.
“You go down there and spend three or four days there and they take you out to a cocktail party, look after you, and it’s like a little holiday away from home.
“I used to go to Perth. It was fantastic out there, but, you know, you have to fight off the local trainers if you want to buy something decent. It’s just too hard to buy one there, but you can get a horse you like for what you want to pay in Tassie.”
Shivouac was picked up from Armidale’s draft, while other runners on Saturday’s Morphettville card such as The Stalker (Stratosphere) were picked up out of Grenville Stud, with the now five-year-old costing Richards $40,000 which has turned into more than $200,000 in prize-money.
“They’re really good,” Richards said of Armidale. “And Grenville, you know, Graham and Bart McCullough. They’ve done great by buying weanlings and reselling them. They don’t sell them all through Tassie, and I don’t blame them because well I think they’ve got over a million dollars for one at the Gold Coast.
“But yeah, they do well and they’re all good people, good country people. And it’s no hustle and bustle down there. I love it. Luckily, last year when I went there I picked up Shivouac.”
Shivouac and The Stalker are not Richards only cases of shrewd purchasing, Tapinforpar, an $80,000 purchase has returned over $310,000 in prize-money thus far and his trainer is hopeful conditions will suit tomorrow.
“Tapinforpar has drawn a barrier [one] where he can sit back, sort of two or three back on the fence, and he likes a good space between runs. I think he’s got about four or five weeks between runs this time,” Richards said.
Richards and Moyle will also run Scooped (Derryn) in the Ule Hoof Oil Maiden Plate (1000m), Crown Mint (Hallowed Crown) in the Sportsbet Jockey Watch Handicap (1550m), and both Bristler (Zebedee) and Mesrour (Nicconi) in the card-ending Winning Edge Presentations Handicap (1000m).
“I thought he was good first-up [when second],” Richards said of $11,250 acquisition Scooped. “He probably should have won last week, and he kept hanging in behind the leader.
“So we’ve whacked blinkers on him, he worked in blinkers Tuesday morning and went really well. So he’s got that favourite to beat, the Stokes horse [Street Legal] but he’s honest enough.”
Of Bristler, who is a homebred, Richards added: “I think Bristler will go okay, but he generally needs a run before he gets fit. He’s been great for us, a very fast horse, things have to go his way. He’s got a good barrier [four] tomorrow but he’s better second up.”
Meanwhile, Fast Tempo (Time Test) was a $25,000 purchase over at the 2023 NZB Karaka Yearling Sale, and he may present the best value tomorrow as he attempts a second victory in the PFD Food Services Handicap (1400m).
“Fast Tempo’s working up to a win, he’s run over 1100 [metres] and 1200 [metres] which is too short for him,” Richards said. “He’s at 1400 tomorrow and he’s going to be around about the mark.”
“They’ve all got good chances, I could go home with one or two winners, or I could go home with none, but who knows, it will be a good day at the races.”
A final word on Shivouac, the colt is out of the winning Uncle Mo (Indian Charlie) mare Made Me Shiver, from the family of Group 1 winners Reann (Hussonet) and Coolangatta (Written Tycoon). Richards had a certain theory behind his reason to shell out $30,000 on the highly promising juvenile.
“I liked him because he was out of an Uncle Mo mare,” Richards explained. “Uncle Mo didn’t hit the heights in Australia. However, he was a champion in America so I thought there’s got to be something there so it will probably come out in his broodmares and, you know, that’s just the way I look at it.”
With an eye for a good horse at a good price in the Sale ring, Richards also admitted to seeing value in the betting ring when Shivouac made his debut – which he won at odds of $31.
“We’ll know a bit more about him after Saturday. We thought he’d go close to winning on debut and that he shouldn’t have been a 40-1 shot, so we had a few bets. I didn’t think he’d win like he did and run the time that he did, he just toyed with them,” he said.
“We’ll be probably disappointed if he doesn’t go close to winning tomorrow, but it won’t be the end of the world. He’ll just go for a break and come back as a three-year-old, he’ll definitely be a better three-year-old. He’s a big lanky bugger so he needs a bit of time.
“He’s not going to have too much of a break but he’s a type of horse that it won’t worry him, he’s so easygoing.”