The comeback story of Aussie racehorse Giga Kick as he looks set to break world prizemoney record

The Aussie battler of the horse racing world, Giga Kick, is four races away from becoming the greatest prizemoney winning race horse of all time – not just in Australia, but globally.

And the remarkable thing is that as a young horse, the vets couldn’t even get a catheter into him to help ease the immense pain of a colic attack.

So he was put aside with the vets as his owner, Jonathan Munz, expected him to die that day. Munz even rang the trainer who was to get the horse and told him that he would be euthanised.

But when they checked on him a little later, needle in hand, there was a fiery look of determination in the young horse’s eye that gave them pause.

So they stayed the proceedings for one day. And 24 hours later, as if a miracle occurred, he was on his feet, having stared death in the face once from the colic, once from the vet.

Since then, Giga Kick has gone on to become a wonder racehorse, defying not just death, but his lowly pedigree too.

At just three years of age he already sits ninth on the Australian All-Time Money Earning List, which is headed by freak of nature Winx at $26.5million. 

After retirement, Winx was inducted into the Australian Racing Hall Of Fame.

She is also the highest-earning thoroughbred of all time worldwide. 

The wonder mare Winx (pictured) is the current highest prizemoney earner in racing history

Giga Kick has won $9.6million thus far following his game Group 1 win in Brisbane last weekend. He will be sent for a spell now and come back with four targets in his sights and if he wins them, he climbs to the top of the mountain.

They are: the $300,000 McEwan Stakes, $1million Premier Stakes, $15million Everest (strongly rumoured to be worth $20million this year) and $8million Golden Eagle.

Being the best horse in Australia means he is the ruling favourite for all of them at the moment. 

Currently Giga Kick’s record is 10 starts, seven wins and two placings. 

At the same age Winx had a record of 10 starts, four wins, three placings for $636,500.

They of course are totally different racing horses as Winx could step out to 2200m while Giga Kick may struggle past 1400m.

All that aside, Giga Kick’s rise from a lowly-bred animal to potential record setter has been perhaps the greatest rags to riches story in Australia’s storied racing past.

Giga Kick’s young trainer Clayton Douglas with one of the horse’s winning riders, Jamie Kah, at the Oaks Dinner last November

His father, Scissor Kick, was so average as a stallion that he was sold off to a farm in Tunisia for pittance. There he serves a few mares a year. 

As for the champ’s mother, Rekindled Applause, she also was lowly bred and in fact never even raced. When Scissor Kick covered her she was an 18-year-old, way past standard breeding age and in human terms she would have been 60 years old.

Giga Kick, therefore, should never have been conceived, should not have survived the colic attack and when he did go to sale with a $20,000 reserve, his owner thought at the last moment, no, why bother, I’ll just keep him.

‘When it came to the process of designating Jonathan’s yearlings, we got to the last one – he was about number 39 – and it was Giga Kick. Jonathan said, ‘Give it to [Antony and Sam] Freedman to train,’ and I said, ‘They won’t want a Scissor Kick’, said Munz’s racing manager, Rod Douglas.

‘He then said, well OK, what about Grahame Begg?’ and I said the same thing. I mentioned Clayton Douglas and that is the end of the story, it was the first horse Jonathan gave him.’

Clayton Douglas was only new to the training ranks then at 27 years of age, and only had a handful of average horses on his books. He thought the baldy-faced Giga Kick would fit in quite nicely.

And boy was he right.  

His very first start was in a two-year-old maiden worth just $19,000 to the winner and, ridden by Jamie Kah, he took off from gate-rise and led them a merry dance to win by four lengths. 

It had been an impressive debut but no-one could have seen what was to follow and surely will still unfold.

He raced again as a two-year-old, this time at Flemington, which is a huge rise in class from Sale and won there by over a length. 

Buoyed by this early unexpected success, Douglas spelled himk, then brought him back as an early three-year-old.

He won two races within his age group meaning he was four from four when the world’s richest turf race, The Everest over 1200m at Randwick, loomed. 

Owner Munz, a magnate who owns a stud farm and who recently purchased a Toorak mansion for $14million, told Douglas to have a throw at the stumps.

Despite being unbeaten, his wins were in restricted company and nowhere near worthy of being in the same class as say the favourite in The Everest, Nature Strip who had been to England earlier in the year, trounced Europe’s best there and came home rated the fastest sprinter on the planet.

So Giga Kick was an outsider. ‘His wins were in weaker races but he was running very fast times late in his races so we had a shy at the stumps. For that money, who wouldn’t?’ said Douglas.

Craig Williams and Giga Kick (both pictured) have formed an unbeatable combination and will both try to shatter the world prizemoney total this year

The superstar speedsters took off and he trailed behind until they turned for home. Calling on his late-race rallying prowess he swooped and coming with a dazzling burst of speed late he claimed Nature Street and the rest of the field near home and won.

He will be a year older, stronger, tougher and faster when The Everest comes around this October.

In the past 12 months Munz has extended his holding with young trainer Douglas and he has four in the stable.

‘It’s still hard to believe this is all happening,’ said Douglas. 

‘He quite easily could have gone through the Scone sale and it would have changed someone’s life, some little bloke would have got him for under $20,000.

‘And that’s normally Jonathan’s way. He usually sells geldings and Giga Kick is a gelding.’ 

If Phar Lap and Seabiscuit and Secretariat can have their journeys on the track turned into a movie, surely Giga Kick can qualify should he bypass them all on the prizemoney list later this year.