Just 24 hours after the final day of the Victorian Racing Club four-day carnival, Mike Moroney was back behind his desk plotting the next three weeks of spring engagements.

As he poured over the calendar and entered Buffalo River for next Saturday’s $500,000 Cranbourne Cup, he’d also made a notation for his smart middle distance galloper Hang Man, to start in the $500,000 Ballarat Cup.

Looking up from his desk Moroney, 63, has been largely a trail blazer in Australasian racing since he started work for the famous O’Sullivan family in New Zealand.

Moroney, who was one of five and born in Matamata, left school intent on helping a local stud groom manage a group of stallions.

However, a marriage breakdown saw that position dropped but fortunately his brother Paul went to school with the now Hong Kong based Paul O’Sullivan, son of Dave O’Sullivan.

O’Sullivan senior was looking for a stable foreman and with a good word from O’Sullivan junior, Moroney won the position.

They were a partnership, something that Australian racing would never recognise despite the scheme working successfully across New Zealand.

“We were a great combination for a year, but I eventually went on my own and in a number of firsts for my career I was able to prepare successfully a hundred horses in training.

“In the nineties a group of owners from Asia were keen for me to break into the affluent Australian market. And we did, and I did, with just 14 horses retaining the bulk of them back in New Zealand,” Moroney said.

The Kiwi was told in no uncertain terms that Australia didn’t encourage partnerships and that his application to train in Melbourne would mean he would have to prepare his horses from outlying areas such as Cranbourne.

“So, I settled in Adelaide and continued my operation in New Zealand.  But if I hadn’t trained anywhere it had to be near an airport where I could commute between the two countries,” he said.

Moroney’s turning point as far as his Melbourne operation came, was with a late-night call from the VRC informing him that he had 24 hours to make up his mind on whether he wanted 70 stables at arguably Australia’s finest centre, Flemington.

“It was too good an offer to resist. Filling the 70 boxes was not easy but I moved out of Adelaide picked up some local horses and brought some in from New Zealand and just hoped I could take off,” he said.

In 1999 his filly Shizu won the Thousand Guineas at Caulfield and there was now some chatter that this quietly spoken Kiwi could train.

However, a year later and Moroney’s fortunes quickly gathered momentum when Brew took out the 2000 Cup.  

“It was not only a life changing victory, but I won it for some very important owners in Victoria and they led me to meet other new owners with the likes of Rupert Lea.

“And then that association, which has gone for many years now, has seen my business grow and grow. And even now I continue to have a partner in my stable in New Zealand, a prospect that 20 years ago was abhorrent to Australia and now it seems it’s all the rage.

“It hasn’t been easy, I’ve been lucky and with my brother Paul, who is probably one of the best judges going around, things have gone well,” he said.

Moroney has enjoyed success at the highest level winning 52 group ones between here and New Zealand. He has been able to win races such as they Blue Diamond Stakes right up to Derbies and of course, a Melbourne Cup.

During the 1990s Dave O’Sullivan who is synonymous with horseracing in New Zealand despatched Moroney to Australia to Melbourne trainer Angus Armanasco in a bid to broaden his horizons.

“It’s funny, when I arrived at Angus’ I lived in his house for six weeks and Dave had said to me, get him to teach you how he makes two-year-olds and when I put this to Angus he said that’s good, you can teach me how to make stayers,” he said.

As Moroney went back to his bookwork he said that his brave gallant stayer Sound, would have one more start in the weight for age Zipping Classic at Caulfield on the last Saturday in November.

“He’ll go home to New Zealand then into a nice green paddock and then set for next year’s Auckland Cup. And after that he’ll go into retirement.

“He is a stallion, so he’ll cover a small book of mares back in New Zealand and enjoy his days of retirement,” he said.

However for Moroney, retirement is still a long way off, still keen to prove how one horseman can successfully run a stable in two countries.