Raemaekers’ rewarding road to success

By Jordan Gerrans

North Queensland horsewoman Lauren Raemaekers has been on the journey with enigmatic sprinter Toi Toi since the beginning and the pair relished a special win together on Saturday at Bowen.

Raemaekers is in the infancy of her training tenure after initially riding trackwork for Matthew Dunn at Murwillumbah for five years before spending almost two years with the Toby Edmonds camp at the Gold Coast.

At Edmonds’ barn, one of her highlights was riding eventual Stradbroke champion Spicy Martini in some of her early trackwork.

While at Edmonds’ team, she also crossed paths with a young horse named Toi Toi.

The daughter of Bivouac didn’t make the grade in South East Queensland after six winless efforts before she was put online for sale.

At this stage, Raemaekers, a Belgian national, had moved to NQ after an injury had slowed down her stint as a trackwork rider.

“The horse is quite special to me,” Raemaekers said of Toi Toi.

“I have ridden her since she was a baby and I kind of lost track of her when I injured my arm.

“She ended up for sale and a friend of mine rang me and said, hey, one of your horses that was actually one of my favourite horses was for sale.

“She is quite silly; I like the silly ones. At that stage, I was living on a property in Bowen and I ended up buying her.

“That's how the journey started because I didn't want to pay anyone else to train her.

“So, I just got my licence and did it myself.

“I walked in this journey thinking ‘I can train a horse, how hard can it be’, but believe me when I say, that put me with my two feet on the ground real quick.”

Toi Toi delivered the 32-year-old her first win as a trainer on Saturday at Bowen in the QTIS Maiden Plate over 1200 metres, with Cairns Cup-winning rider Ivo Fry in the saddle.

“It was amazing,” the young trainer said.

“I knew she could win it easily, but in racing you never know what's going to happen.

“I couldn't believe everything just fell into place and she just kind of closed in really good.

“She was just closing in the race and I couldn't believe it.

“I know she's a horse that just needs a bit of time in between races, which is funny I say that because she won six days after her last race.

“She is just a horse that needs time and patience. She's been in work for a good seven months. She didn't have her first race until she'd been in work for five months.

“She's just a horse that you need to take your time with, keep her as happy as possible. The most important thing with her because she's quite silly in the head, if she's happy, she'll do anything for you.”

The four-year-old mare did it with ease in the end, scoring by more than a length.

The run was Toi Toi's fourth start for the Raemaekers stable.

Toi Toi is the only galloper the rookie conditioner has in work, as she is assisted by her partner, Group 1-winning hoop Paul Hammersley, who has also recently shifted north.

Toi Toi will go out a winner, with the young trainer making the call to retire the mare following Saturday's triumph.

“It's mentally exhausting for her,” she said.

“Putting everything together, it's not worth it. She's done amazing, but she has to go out for a break because she has had a long prep.

“But, it's not worth bringing her back in. I don't want to bring her in in summer. That's one thing, so I'll have to give her a long break and then start all over again.

“I don't think that's going to be worth it. She's done well; she's done good. She's happy and I want to finish off on a good note with her.”

Toi Toi raced in the colours of the Belgium flag - red, yellow and black - in a nod to Raemaekers's heritage.

Now based in Townsville, Raemaekers has been around horses from a young age in her home country before realising her dreams of working around her passion for a day job when she relocated to Australia.

“I came over here and it was just a country full of horses and so much opportunity to work with horses,” she said.

“I started out on the bottom, just working myself up and learning from everyone.

“Obviously, I am still green about it all, but I've learned so much. Not even just racing wise, but the difference in horses in different continents, the difference is huge.

“I've been very lucky to be involved with a lot of people, such as Matthew Dunn. I worked a lot for him, not just riding but a bit of everything.

“I learned so much there about training in racing, that's probably where I learned the most.”

As Raemaekers has been on the sidelines riding trackwork, Hammersley has picked up the slack and prepared Toi Toi for her maiden win for much of her campaign.

“He's been jumping on her for me,” she said.

“Because she gets quite strong, it's definitely been a team effort for the both of us. Toi Toi got worked a lot away from the track to keep her mentally happy and change things up.

“This way we could work on her specific needs and believe me, she has specific needs.

“She was definitely not an easy horse to start off with, but probably the best one to learn from.”

The team of Raemaekers and Hammersley will consider taking on more horses following the retirement of Toi Toi.