by Adam Hamilton

Jodi Quinlan’s most remarkable of comebacks is complete and in dramatic fashion.

Pushing herself around in a wheelchair about four years ago, after a freakish and horrific accident involving a runaway horse, the now 48-year-old thought her stellar driving career was over.

But Saturday night (Oct. 14) at Melton, Quinlan teamed with the pacer who has put her back on the map, Act Now, for a stunning upset as an $81 (for a $1 bet) outsider in the strongest race Australia has seen this year, the Group 1 Victoria Cup.

The race itself was epic, but the drama started long before that for Quinlan and Act Now’s co-trainers Emma Stewart and Clayton Tonkin.

Not long after arriving at the track, Act Now lashed-out with a hind leg and got it stuck over a railing. It took six people, some rope and quite a few minutes to get him back into position.

“It was quite a process to get his leg back over,” Stewart said. “He grazed down all the front of his back leg.”

Stewards ordered a veterinary inspection then further delayed clearing Act Now to race until he had warmed up satisfactorily before the race.

“When I heard what happened and first saw him, I didn’t think he’d be allowed to go around,” Quinlan said.

Owner/breeder Bruce Edwards said: “Even 10 minutes before the race, I didn’t know if he’d been cleared to run or not.”

Act Now did run, posted his 21st win from just 43 starts and took his career earnings to $887,285.

It gave both Quinlan and, more remarkably Stewart, their first Victoria Cup wins.

It came 19 years after Quinlan scored the other biggest win of her almost 2300-win career on Sokyola in the 2004 Miracle Mile.

But just driving again seemed a longshot after Quinlan was smashed into by a runaway horse on Christmas Eve, 2018, leaving her with three broken bones in her back, a split kidney, extensive muscle damage and ongoing issues with post-concussion syndrome.

“As bad as it sounds, I was lucky,” Quinlan said. “They showed me the X-rays and said I was just millimeters from the spinal cord. And if the horse kicked me in the head, rather than my body, I wouldn’t be here today. It was a long, long road back. I couldn’t walk at all for a long time and needed to use a wheelchair and then a walking frame.

“I didn’t even think about driving (horses) again for a long time, I didn’t let myself go there. When I finally did, I was really worried about getting hit in the back again or the kidney with the damage I had.”

After about a year recovering, a then 2-year-old called Act Now was one of the first horses she drove when she returned.

“I drove him for the first time at his fourth start and won five in a row on him,” Quinlan said. “I’ve driven him every start since. I think I’ve the pandemic to thank. We kept racing, but in regions. I was in Emma and Clayton’s region, so I basically became their stable driver for a while.

“You can see why this win means so much. He’s been such a great horse to me and I was surprised he was the forgotten horse of the race.”

Stewart admitted the race was a bit of a blur.

“We had five runners when the final field came out, had to scratch Honolua Bay the day before because he wasn’t quite right and then had the drama with Act Now in the stalls,” Stewart said. “Then, I didn’t know where to look in the home straight. I thought Mach Dan was going through on the inside and might be right in the finish, Encipher had nowhere to go and then only in the last bit I saw Act Now flashing home.”

Stewart, who scored an upset win with Encipher in the inaugural $2.1mil TAB Eureka six weeks earlier, had done it again.

It was her first Victoria Cup win and middle pin of an extraordinary night of dominance where she also landed the quinella (first and second) in the Group 1 Victoria Derby with Petracca and Perfect Class and trumped that with the first five across the line in the Group 1 Victoria Oaks, won by Sweet Bella.

“I was blown away by how big Eureka night was and how special it felt, but this trumps everything,” Stewart said. “This is by far the biggest night we’ve had. The Victoria Cup is such a special race here and to win out first, but also get the Derby and Oaks too… it can’t get much better.”

The stirring finish was set-up when big guns Rock N Roll Doo, the defending champion, and Australia’s most exciting pacer Leap To Fame locked horns for much of the race.

Just when it seemed Leap To Fame, who sat parked, had lifted enough to rundown the leader Rock N Roll Doo, that’s when Act Now and Catch A Wave sprouted wings.

Catch A Wave’s run was extraordinary after being three-wide early and then driver Kate Gath having to snag right back to last.

“I’d given up,” trainer Andy Gath said. “I was thinking what race we’d take him to next and then Kate hooked him to the outside at the top of the straight and flew home. I can’t believe he got so close.”

It was only Leap To Fame’s third defeat in the past year, but they have been in his three biggest races and all after he has endured the hardest run in the race.

His chance for redemption comes in his own backyard at the Brisbane Inter Dominion in December.

And that’s where Act Now, Quinlan and Stewart are headed, too. Trying to go two better than his third placing in last year’s Melbourne Inter Dominion final.