Tribute to a Champion - Shane Rose's All Luck

This article is from the January 2021 Horse Deals magazine.

Article: Anna Sharpley.

There was a case of unintended irony in the name of the champion this month because All Luck, “Lucky” in the stable, had all the talent in the world, but no luck. It requires great ability to win at World Championships and Olympic Games, and there is no doubting that All Luck had that, but to win, especially at eventing, you also need a little luck and Lucky didn’t have it. He did, however, have the good fortune to be produced well, first by successful Victorian eventing rider, Ebony Tucker and then brought on to World Championship and an Olympic Team Silver Medal by international eventing notable, Shane Rose. Despite some setbacks throughout his career, Lucky was fortunate to live out his long life with great care and comfort, and this is his tribute.

All Luck was bred by the Victorian arm of Emirates Park. Foaled in 1994, he was by the reasonably undistinguished Bao Lack, out of the rather more interesting Bustino (GB) mare, Mazyooneh (GB). She was also the dam of the 2016 Adelaide CCI5 Star winner, TS Jamaimo, ridden by Christopher Burton. Bao Lack was by the successful French sire, Blushing Groom that had Wild Risk (FR) on his dam line. Wild Risk, that also appears on Mazyooneh’s sire line is, according to an article by William Macklem in the US OTT Thoroughbred Magazine, “an influential producer of event horses.” Lucky had five race starts, earning $1,000 for a second placing.

“A family friend, Dennis Frolich owned and trained him at Cranbourne”, explains Ebony Tucker. “He was in the paddock without rugs one day when I visited and I asked about him. He had a couple of race preparations but was not much of a racehorse, and Dennis rang up and said come and get him. He was rising four years old and I competed him up to two star level before I sold him to Shane. With help from dressage coach, Ron Patterson, Lucky was always well placed in the dressage and he won quite a few events.

“In the early days he could buck a bit too. I remember one event in particular at Yerringberg. Lucky had a very thin tail and in my wisdom, I decided to put in a false tail for the dressage phase. I had never ridden him with a false tail before and I hopped on and he promptly bucked me off in the dressage warm-up. I got back on and was called in to do the test and we won it. When I came out of the arena, I think it was Seumus Marwood who said; I’ll give you $500 for him now!”

“In 2003 we were looking at buying a few young horses to bring on and ultimately turn over,” begins Shane. “We went down to Melbourne where Sharon Ridgeway had organised a few horses for us to look at. We saw Lucky, however his vetting wasn’t amazing, but we really liked him. We spoke to Angela Shacklady who owned a few horses with me and we decided to buy him as a horse to keep. He wasn’t for sale, as his vetting was always going to be problematic, but the issues he had when we bought him never caused ongoing complications throughout his career. Although he did develop other issues.

“My wife Niki rode him in a couple of events when we first got him and then I rode him. He was such a straightforward horse, really good on the flat, a very good, careful jumper and easy to ride, and went up the grades pretty quickly. He developed suspensory origin problems and over time he had a number of issues in that area that had to be addressed and managed well.

“He was an awesome horse and it was a very strong period in Australian eventing when he was competing; there were some good horses here at the time and Lucky was as good as any of them. He had some soundness issues throughout his career and if I had him now, I would have been able to manage him a little differently. He was good in the dressage phase, but I think I would have trained him differently if I knew then what I know today. I would have had him much softer in his way of going, because he was naturally a very good mover with a lovely shape. He had three really good paces and was really trainable. Back then, I was very much into getting him to look good; now I am more into leaving them in their natural frame and working with that.

“We were selected for the 2006 Aachen WEG Team and I had a fall at the influential upturned boat in the first water complex. It caused quite a lot of grief and I think horses struggled working out what the actual question was at that particular obstacle. I tried to do too much and Lucky was a horse that was much happier being allowed to do it rather than being forced to do it. That is quite a Thoroughbred trait.

“We went to England after WEG and a few weeks later went to Burghley CCI4* (now 5*) and he was third by just .1 of a penalty. I think I could have galloped around Burghley, one of the toughest Three Day Events in the world at the time, in a halter and lead. He was brave and super adjustable. As a cross country horse, he was a machine and a very careful jumper.

“He had a terrible run when he came home in 2007. Adelaide was cancelled because of EI and in May 2008 he did the Sydney Three Day Event. He was leading by about ten points going into the showjumping. He had an overreach from the cross country the day before, but nothing at all serious. Heading to the Sunday morning trot up, he tripped on some concrete edging and knocked the overreach and consequently did not pass to proceed to the final jumping phase. It was the only time the overreach caused him any concern. He should have gone to the Beijing Olympic event in Hong Kong straight from Sydney, but he had to stay in work and go to Werribee in June, where he came second to Sonja Johnson and Ringwould Jaguar.”

In Hong Kong, everyone was expecting big things of Lucky, but of all the phases for it to go wrong, no one picked the dressage?

“To be fair to the horse, he was cooked. He had done three 3DE preparations in a row and had done a lot of galloping. He probably would have gone round that cross country course out of the paddock. He was not happy with the training regime at the time and he struggled with the dressage. He lost it in the test and it was not good. He was last to go of the Australian team and late in the day in the mud, he produced the best cross country run of the day. He was the only horse to come in with single figure time penalties. No horse on the day came in under time and the Australian team won the silver medal.

“Lucky was such a natural athlete and now, with the benefit of hindsight, knowing the history of the horse and of course knowing more myself, I would have done things differently in his training and in the lead up to Beijing. But I had to prove that he could do it over and over again, which worked against, rather than for him, but we all learn from our mistakes. His performance required a lot of management to keep him going. Had that not been the case, he would, I am sure, have won some major championships. He was called Lucky, but he did not have much luck.

“When he came back from Beijing, he had surgery on a suspensory and in recovery, fell and damaged his hip. Again, with the benefit of hindsight, I would have been better to give him six months in the paddock. Although the operation was a success, he was never quite the same after that. I did not want him to be remembered for not going as well as he could, so I retired him in 2010. If I had just turned him out in the paddock to recover, I might have had another crack at a Championships with him.

“When he retired, he was sound and looked great. I did not want him to go to a kid who would have got better and better and consequently asked more and more of Lucky, so I ended up giving him to a friend, Judy Horder, who did a bit of low-level dressage with him. He had a lovely retirement where he was doing enough to keep him in good working order. When he had done enough of that, he came home and had a few years in the paddock, eating as much as he could. He lived a pretty happy life. Towards the end of last year, he started getting colicky and was struggling to keep weight on and we thought at some stage we were going to have to make the decision, but in the end, it got made for us and Lucky was euthanised on the 3rd of November.

“He was probably the best horse I’ve ever had and If I could find another one like him, I would probably win a gold medal.”

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