Aaron Beck burning the midnight oil

By Jordan Gerrans

Horse trainers getting up at all hours of a night for their job is commonplace in the racing game. 

But, Central Queensland’s Aaron Beck might just take the cake when it comes to being awake to watch his horse when most of the regular population are sleeping away. 

Beck is in the infancy of his training career and he has been campaigning Next Legacy at Rockhampton’s Callaghan Park over the last few months. 

The 45-year-old works in the mining industry away from his small interest in his gallopers and is currently based in the United States of America for a month. 

So on Tuesday afternoon Australian time when Next Legacy won her first race, Beck watched the event online from his Pennsylvania base at around midnight local time.

The filly’s win doubled as Beck’s first as a trainer, so he was up until around 2am local time in Pennsylvania talking to his team at the track back home about the booming result.

Next Legacy was the first horse the Beck camp had ever taken to the races. 

After being snaffled online for a tick under $2,000, the two-year-old filly had placed in her first three starts before scoring by more than three lengths over 1050 metres on Tuesday.

“I thought she would have come on earlier, but she got it right this time,” a proud Beck said on Wednesday morning Australian time. 

“She has shown promise in her trackwork, even from the start, all the trackwork riders had big wraps on her.

“She has run well in all four of her starts so far.

“I have been pretty lucky to get a horse like her early in my training career because it is not my skill that is leading to these results, it is her ability.”

Beck has been around the caper for much of his life with his uncle Jim O’Shea and cousin Stephen O’Shea entrenched in the local CQ industry. 

He has helped them out over the years before stepping away to focus on his own work and sporting interests. 

He has returned to the game initially with an eye to breeding a few horses and with it has come a fledgling conditioning career. 

“I have had the tutelage from them to take it on,” Beck said. 

“I have had that support around me when I was learning the trade.

“I have got that bug again for racing and have gone back to it after being around them in the early days.

“Jim and Stephen have helped me heaps and I think Jim has enjoyed seeing me being interested in going to the track every morning.

“I think it gives him the chance to pass on his knowledge.”

With Beck in the USA, his wife Rachel was on hand to look after their promising filly on Tuesday. 

“We have been watching her and waiting for it to happen, it has been coming,” Rachel said.

“We have got a good one straight away, we knew she was lovely. She is happy so we will keep her going.”

Both the Becks were keen to praise Raul Silvera Olivera for his job with the filly.

The Uruguayan jockey has helped the stable out with her trackwork and was rewarded with her maiden win.

Beck is keen on the breeding side of the game and liked that his filly was a daughter of King’s Legacy.

Coolmore Stud sire King’s Legacy was a dual Group 1-winner. 

A son of Redoute’s Choice, King’s Legacy was a star two-year-old of his year in 2000.

He won the Group 1 Inglis Sires’ and Group 1 Champagne Stakes at Randwick before placing behind Ole Kirk in the Group 1 Golden Rose at Rosehill.

“I am a big fan of the breed and when they are online for that cheap a price, you are wondering that there might be something wrong with the horse,” he said.

“But, she turned up at home, we were happy with her and I was dumbfounded that we got her for that price.

“I think she is continuing to grow and I think she will grow into becoming a better three-year-old.”

Of his own breeding interests, he has a couple of youngsters he is hoping to get to the races in the coming months.

He has two broodmares - Smartcelli and Turmoil – that have produced foals. 

Beck is keen to race them and won't be putting them up for sale, declaring that they are his next challenge in the industry.