It’s Half Yours, half mine as the McEvoy father-son combo thrives

Tony McEvoy says he is more relaxed ahead of six-year-old gelding Half Yours’ Caulfield Cup run this year than he was 12 months ago.

At that stage, he and his son Calvin, who have trained in partnership since 2019, had not trained a Caulfield Cup winner.

Half Yours was the race’s shortest-priced favourite in 20 years and there were still questions in the minds of some whether the trainers’ well-established success in training sprinters could translate to stayers.

Not only did Half Yours answer that question at Caulfield with Jamie Melham in the saddle, but he backed it up a fortnight later with a historic win in the Melbourne Cup.

Despite all their previous success in racing, the McEvoys’ world changed the moment they won Australia’s most famous race.

“The recognition that we’ve had from winning the Cup has been tremendous and really lovely, to be honest,” Tony McEvoy said. “It’s on our resume now as Cup winners, and they can’t take that away.”

On Saturday, Half Yours is back in the Caulfield Cup, heading into barrier seven with Mark Zahra aboard after Melham decided to instead spend her Saturday riding Blue Door in The Everest.

Although disappointed that the clash in the racing schedule now means Australia’s best jockeys have to make that choice, the McEvoys were pleased with her replacement.

The preparation has been different, too, as last year’s group 1 wins propelled the horse into weight-for-age company, rather than the rapid move through the grades that defined last year’s success.

He will carry top weight into the Caulfield Cup and the stable knows many have their doubts he can repeat his effort from last year. He has not been placed since the Melbourne Cup, and his last-start fifth on a heavy track at Flemington didn’t change the sceptics’ minds.

“Once you win those two big cups, your world changes, and it changed for him,” Tony McEvoy said.

It changed for the McEvoy stable too, in a good way.

Not only did the stable – which has horses in work at both Flemington and Ballarat after they stopped training out of their South Australian property Kildalton Park in 2022 – attract more buyers of staying horses, the father-son combination’s reputation soared.

Tony looks after Ballarat and Calvin is based at Flemington, although they spend plenty of time at each other’s base. Tony jokes that the geographical separation has been a blessing.

“When we were just in Ballarat, we were on top of each other a little bit,” Tony admits. “With the two stables, it works beautifully. [Calvin’s] doing such a great job. He really wants to achieve in this game, and I’m proud of him.”

The pair came into racing through different paths, with Tony leaving home in Streaky Bay, South Australia as a teenager to work with Bill Holland, becoming a jockey before joining the Colin Hayes stable.

He had to fight for every opportunity and both worked and played hard before maturing into one of the most respected people in racing.

Calvin was raised among horses and always had a million questions for David Hayes when his dad worked with him. Such was Calvin’s persistence, David once limited him to five queries a day so he could get some work done.

He was also, like any person of his generation, just as likely to be inside being distracted by something or other than mucking out the stable.

Calvin hung around pony clubs before his dad sent him to work at Kildalton Park and he went overseas to work as a pupil assistant at UK trainer David Simcock’s Newmarket operation. He returned to work with McEvoy Racing before the pair entered into their partnership in 2019.

Calvin still had plenty to learn from his father, but he brought a work ethic, an eagerness to learn, a knowledge of horses, and some much-needed tech-savvy into the business.

His presence gave Tony – who has never turned on a computer in his life and jokes he still yearns for “a flip phone that rings” – a boost he never imagined possible.

“He brought a different dynamic to how I’d always done it, but that’s the beauty of hanging around with youth. They keep you relevant and keep you up to date,” Tony said.

“What he has done has invigorated me and given me the energy to go to another level too, so it’s been a fantastic thing.”

During the week, Calvin was up and back to Sydney at sales trying to find the next fast one after representing the stable at the barrier draw. If he wasn’t trotting up a horse, he was watching one work.

They are from different generations, with Tony a tearaway in his younger years and Calvin more refined but equally earthy. Calvin also possesses the same drive to succeed and warm demeanour as his dad.

Calvin admits the generation gap might explain their slightly different approach at times to preparing horses, but the commonalities define their relationship more than any divergences.

“He’s old school, and they were a lot firmer on horses back in the day,” Calvin said.

“I feel like I am a touch softer in terms of training, but we are very similar.

“I have been working for him for a long time. We have differing opinions obviously sometimes, but we usually meet in the middle somewhere.”

On Saturday, the pair will again be at Caulfield, full of energy and the good cheer the family is known for as they saddle up Half Yours. Tony’s wife, Jo, is the linchpin to McEvoy Racing, with daughter Eliza now working in the business, too.

The crew have already had an impact on the Ballarat community, with the presence of the Ballarat-based KIDS Foundation at the Flemington stables on Thursday just one example of why the McEvoys are a popular presence at any gathering.

Susie O’Neill, the founder and CEO of the foundation, said the family has provided incredible support to the organisation that supports children who have been through trauma.

“The McEvoy family are heavily invested in the foundation. They have so many events at their stables in Ballarat, where we can take children out there, work with the horses and really feel a part of it,” O’Neill said.

“They won the Tour d’Horse last year (an annual fundraising ride in the Hunter Valley) and we reckon that kick-started Half Yours’ journey to success.”

That success is a great memory now, but the McEvoys are chasing new ones on Saturday. A combination that has proved itself on the big stage returns to the Caulfield Cup with the same horse attempting to become the first back-to-back winner of the 2400-metre race since Rising Fast in 1954-55.

Tony and Calvin are humming, and the most famous horse in their stable is again ready to perform at his best. Whether that translates to a win won’t be known until late Saturday afternoon.

“Our horse is fantastic, and he’s the one that’s going to do the talking. We’ve got faith in him,” Tony said.

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