Manifold Bay: Farewell to a champion of the game

Grant Crane could only have dreamed about the wild ride that was ahead of him when a young pacing colt named Manifold Bay (Safely Kept) was born at the family’s new harness racing property in Victoria in October 1997.

Known around the stables as “Norm”, Manifold Bay died last week at age 28 in the same paddock he was weaned in – but his passing brought back a flood of memories not just for Crane, but for the fans who adored the big, brave-hearted superstar of the early 2000s.

“He was officially the first horse I trained,” Crane said of the pacer who would win a Victorian Breeders Crown 2YO Final at only his third appearance and Group 1 victories in the WA Derby, Chariots Of Fire and Golden Nugget.

“We weren’t harness racing or gambling people, but my Godfather was a bookie and there were always horses around the family. Growing up in Melbourne, my earliest memory is of being at the Showgrounds trots. When I was older, every Saturday night my mum would drop me and a mate at the Mooney Valley trots, so I always loved harness racing,” Crane said.

After leaving school, Crane worked as a laborer while playing country footy, and was signed by Leeton, in the NSW Riverina.

“I was about 21 or 22 and I met a family who had pacers. I started cleaning the boxes and learning to ‘yoke up’ as it was called back then, and that’s where the fire was lit.

“I started working for (trainer) Norm Sait, who was looking after the William Inglis complex at the time, and I was stabled with Norm at a little training facility at Bulla.

“I bought a horse from the yearling sales called Armed Escort (Safely Kept) and it won a couple, but I didn’t have a licence and I was really just a kid playing with a horse!”

It was enough to sharpen the interest of Crane’s dad, Carlton football legend Garry, though, who wanted to breed a winner himself.

When Norm Sait passed away, a broodmare he’d imported from the US, Natalia Castle (Power Bunny), came on the market, and both Grant and Garry were keen.

“Dad ended up buying her with a foal at foot and in foal to Safely Kept.  The colt she was carrying was Manifold Bay, which obviously became ‘Norm’ to us!” Crane said.

What followed was a ride that dreams are made of.  Manifold Bay was a burly, mature youngster, and his talent was obvious from day one.  The Cranes didn’t hesitate to travel with the imposing gelding, which only grew his popular following.

He won five of his six starts as a two-year-old, including the Breeders Crown Final, and finished runner up in the $100,000 Gr 1 VicBred Super Series Final.

At three, he won a further seven races, including the $97,000 WA Derby, and in his four-year-old season, the Chariots of Fire in Sydney, when driven by Gavin Lang, was the biggest win of Manifold Bay’s career.

“I was just a novice, and we didn’t know what we were doing!  We’d win a Group 1 race then load him up in our $4000 float and our $3000 Falcon and struggle to get up the hills home to Kyneton,” Crane laughed.

“We had a lot of help along the way from great people who helped us get the best out of him, like our farrier Eddie Conroy and the chiros such as John Harland.  He was a big horse, with a big gait, and that caused quite a lot of his issues,” he said.

“You ask me what the most memorable moments are?  The Breeders Crown at two, probably for a lot of reasons, because it was his first big win, but also because he hadn’t been all that fit going in, with kidney issues.

“We got those right, but then at the races he wore a very long hopple and had hopple pins in at the start. That night one pin didn’t release, and ‘Norm’ sat in the death-seat and won with one hopple up 10 holes!  That was pretty cool!

“His win in the WA derby was freakish – Dragons Lair and Falcon Strike were in front, and we were 14 lengths off them at one stage and he reeled them in. And one of his best was at Albion Park in the four- and five-year-old championship.  Double Identity had been dominating the Grand Circuit, and we sat outside him and won.

“There are so many, but strangely enough some that are clearest are the ones that burn the most – the ones where he got beaten but probably shouldn’t have and I think there are probably two or three Group Ones I’d put in that category.”

Crane said Manifold Bay was a bit of a “grumpy bugger”.

“Not mean, but you didn’t want to argue with him.  He was his own man a bit, and you had to just let him be himself.  He always took two to catch him to go to the races – if you went on your own to get him, he would run you around and run you around.  But the moment someone else appeared he would virtually put his head in the halter,” he said.

“He would reverse into his shelter in the paddock every time, and he would reverse out – a lot of times in the barn he was the same. He always worked two heats, and it didn’t matter what you did after the first heat, you had to go back to the tie up rail, then head back out onto the track and he would be good as gold.

“It was the greatest experience, racing a horse like him, but the whole time you don’t have a real job – you live and breathe with them and spend all your time wondering if they’ve eaten, whether they did this or that.

“Life is full of sliding doors moments – and that was mine.  I can look back now and say if we hadn’t had him, we wouldn’t have had our other good horse The Sentry (Safely Kept) (a winner of 17 of his first 20 starts, including a Breeders Crown 2yo Final), I wouldn’t have met my wife Michelle (nee Undy) and we wouldn’t have got to know all of the great friends we have all around Australia from harness racing.

“When it all boils down, that’s what I think about most.  The harness racing community loved him, everywhere we went, they would come to see him, to pat him – I had kids do drawings of him and send them to me!”

Crane would love nothing better than to be able to re-watch some of those great moments, but sadly he’s relying only on memory.

“We don’t have any race videos of him at all – there are none online that we can find and ours all got destroyed in a flood, so I would absolutely love it if anyone has any at all of him that they would be happy to share,” Crane said.

“Unfortunately, the only one that’s come to light so far is one my brother-in-law found of the Victoria Derby in 2001 – ‘Norm’ got knocked down and it wasn’t a great night.  It’s probably one of the ones I really can’t bring myself to relive!”

Manifold Bay’s career record stands at: 43 starts, 24 wins and nine placings, with over $520,000 in earnings.

Anyone who has videos or images of Manifold Bay’s races can contact Grant on (0427) 384 431.

by Terry Gange, for Harnesslink