Cheyne Morphy's victory honours late partner

By Jordan Gerrans

Returning trainer Cheyne Morphy says Trevenson’s victory at Kilcoy on Thursday ‘hit a soft spot’ with the gelding his first winner since his partner of 40 years tragically passed away. 

Based out of the Sunshine Coast, the veteran conditioner stepped away from the industry back in early 2016 to enjoy his retirement with his long-time partner Barbara Sutherland. 

While Sutherland and Morphy travelled across Australia and the world for the first four years of the trainer’s racing retirement, Sutherland was struck down with an array of illnesses and eventually passed away in July of last year. 

The 80-year-old considered taking up fishing and buying a boat but was convinced to return to training and nabbed his first victory since December of 2015 at Kilcoy last Thursday. 

It was a strong performance from gelding Trevenson under the riding of in-form apprentice Perrie Carter that delivered the heartfelt triumph. 

“It hit a soft spot,” the veteran trainer said.

It was Sutherland who helped inspire Morphy’s initial retirement from training so they could enjoy life together back when he was in his early 70s. 

“She suggested that it was time for me to give up racing as I had one or two horses of my own and she was a bit over racing,” he recalls.

“We went on 14 cruises and bought a caravan; we did lots of trips in that first five years.

“But, that was all before she got sick – she got cancer bad and a few other things.”

Following Sutherland’s sad death last year, Morphy was weighing up his options around what he was going to do with his time going forward. 

He considered spending his days on the water chasing crabs but was ultimately pushed back into his passion of preparing racehorses by his close mate John Hubbard who trains out of Ipswich. 

Hubbard was going away for a holiday himself late last year and asked Morphy to look after his team of horses for a fortnight. 

“It showed to me that I could handle being back doing that, so I applied for my licence,” Morphy remembers.

“It took me about three sales to buy a horse because I kept getting outbid all the time.

“But, I eventually bought Trevenson in January and have since bought another horse – Cheers – as well.”

Trevenson started his career with Nick Ryan in Victoria and won a maiden as well as putting in another couple of encouraging performances.

It took the four-year-old son of Hellbent five runs to break through in the Sunshine State.

The gelding kept running into heavy and soft surfaces and Morphy was confident his stable star would breakthrough once he was able to get on top of the ground. 

The 30-year-old Carter booted Trevenson home by more than two lengths in a Class 1 Handicap over 1500 metres at Kilcoy last Thursday. 

“It was a big win as the horse was three and four wide for parts of it,” the trainer said.

“I do not people realise how good that win was, people will say its only Kilcoy but they are hard to win.

“He has gone straight around them and she has not even hit him with the stick. She sat on him and cruised to the line; it was a big win.

“He won very easy and he didn’t run bad time, as well. He will win a couple more races.”

Promising hoop Carter has been riding well in recent weeks, recording five winners for the month of June. 

Trevenson’s next assignment will be a step-up to city company when the gelding heads to Doomben in the middle of July over a mile. 

Prior to Thursday’s triumph, Morphy’s last winner was with Hangover Too at Ipswich in late 2015.

Hangover Too won three races for the stable. 

In recent times, Morphy also enjoyed success with gallopers such as Monetary Man and Black Olive while he also previously trained trotters earlier in his life.