PAUL Niceforo could easily be referred to as the “I’ve Been Everywhere” man.
He has trained winners in four States, including far-flung places such as Kununurra and Hall’s Creek in Western Australia, and Nanango, Kumbia and Warra in Queensland.
Throw in better-known tracks such as Darwin, Belmont Park and Eagle Farm – and you’ll get the message about him covering a kilometre or two in his training career.
Thus it could not have been more fitting when the Northern Territory native achieved his greatest result when he won his first race on Royal Randwick’s course proper on Saturday with a horse carrying a “Territory” moniker – and in a $1m feature to boot!
Niceforo’s talented four-year-old Territory Express ($4.40 favorite), with leading apprentice Zac Lloyd on board, burst between runners in the straight from well back on straightening in the Provincial-Midway Championships Final to put the trainer’s name up in lights on racing’s biggest stage at The Championships.
It’s been a long and hard slog for the now 63-year-old, who says he had his first runner in his early 20s at Tennant Creek in the NT.
“His name was Aloboy and he was beaten a short half-head,” Niceforo recalled.
“I was working in a Mission Store at Katherine when I met a couple who called in on their way to taking two horses to race more than three hours away at Darwin.
“They thought one of their horses would win, but I liked the other.
“When they called back in on the way home to tell me my choice was the right one, I guess it stirred my interest in horse racing.”
Niceforo says he learnt so much from an NT trainer named Len Cant, who was a drover and horseman through and through.
“He was a genius,” he said.
To say Niceforo has had his health issues in recent times would be some sort of understatement.
Territory Express overcame traffic issues in the straight to capture the PMC Final, but he has had to overcome two heart attacks and a stroke.
One of those setbacks was around the time his four-year-old gelding won a Benchmark 64 Handicap (1600m) with a big weight at Newcastle on October 14 last year.
Niceforo’s partner and Territory Express’ syndicate manager Maryanne Cram takes up the story.
“Paul had a torn rotator cuff in his right shoulder from hanging on to the horse one day and not letting him get away.
“He was sitting on the couch and not feeling well, so I took him straight to Canterbury Hospital.
“They transferred him to Concord Hospital the next day not long before TE was to race at Newcastle.
“Paul was very unwell, but was adamant he wanted to watch the horse race at Newcastle on his phone.
“Territory Express was an odds-on favorite and though he was slowly away, Paul stayed calm as Ash Morgan steadily picked up ground, then took him to the extreme outside on the turn and let him do his thing to win his second race.
“He was in hospital for eight weeks.”
Territory Express is the only foal of his dam, the Sebring mare Miss Chattering, who won three races in Queensland from her only six starts for his close friend, the former Sydney and now Sunshine Coast-based trainer David Vandyke.
She missed a place only once when 11th (after being last of 16 on the home turn) in the 2017 Winx Sunshine Coast Guineas (1600m), so named as it was the starting point of the great mare’s remarkable 33-race winning streak.
Miss Chattering missed to Sepoy and Duporth in the following two seasons after foaling Territory Express on September 30, 2019 and was retired from breeding a couple of weeks ago.
Niceforo says he didn’t start Territory Express, a son of Irish-bred Territories, as a two-year-old because he didn’t have him.
“He was in a paddock growing,” he said.
It was 12 months ago (plus one day to be exact) when the then three-year-old made his debut and ran third in a Newcastle 3YO Maiden Plate (1200m) on April 12.
Four more starts would follow (three of them in stronger metropolitan company, including the Group 3 Hawkesbury Guineas) before Territory Express broke through seven months ago on resumption at the Newcastle Cup meeting on September 15.
Yet another tardy beginning couldn’t prevent him surging home under Jason Collett to beat his own sex in a 1400m Maiden Handicap as a $2.90 favorite, giving promise of better things to come.
Those “better things” have certainly arrived this preparation.
After a strong-finishing first-up victory in the opening Kembla Grange Qualifier (1400m) of the 2024 Provincial-Midway series on February 29, he was a close and very unlucky second in the Group 2 Ajax Stakes (1500m) at Rosehill Gardens on March 16.
Niceforo believed his horse was good enough to take on the $4m Group 1 Doncaster Mile at Randwick on April 6 (a week before the PMC Final), and an Ajax victory would have provided a “free ticket”.
It wasn’t to be – but the PMC Final was indeed a very nice consolation!
Niceforo says we haven’t yet seen the best of his 14-start “veteran”, and has a long-range plan to win the Group 1 wfa Cox Plate (2040m) at The Valley in late October.
And what about the trainer himself?
He has four boxes at Warwick Farm but currently only two horses in work; the other being Departing Bullet, a seven-year-old gelding who has won seven races and trialled twice recently in preparation for another campaign.
Rather amusingly, the form guide still lists Niceforo as being based at Kembla Grange, but the reality is that he has been training at Warwick Farm for nigh on five years.
He was of course eligible to run his stable star in the series as the Kembla Grange Qualifier was for both provincial and Midway-trained horses.
But surely it’s time for racing’s authorities to rectify this anomaly. After all, the genial 63-year-old has shown that he can train.
He’s come a mighty long way from those early days far away in the Northern Territory!.
Story John Curtis, April 14, 2024 - Pics Bradley Photos
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