Symon Wilde’s Count Zero (NZ) (Zed) cost just $22,000 as a yearling and has returned in excess of $700,000 for connections.
But half of the current ownership group hadn’t even heard of the son of Zed until he was a two-year-old, when a chance encounter at Moonee Valley saw them buy into the Grand Annual Steeplechase hero.
Darren Weir’s Prince Of Penzance (NZ) (Pentire) had just run second in the Moonee Valley Cup under a bold front-running Michelle Payne ride and one of the owners was very unhappy with the tactics.
As it turned out, this would be the trigger for a series of events that eventually landed Stefan Mirenda and his entourage in a then unraced Count Zero.
“We had a mare named Atlantis Dream (NZ) (Elusive City) and she ran the same night as Prince Of Penzance. I remember one of the owners was really dirty on Michelle’s ride,” Mirenda said.
“He and Darren had a bit of a blue … I said to Darren afterwards, ‘I thought it was a brilliant ride’ and he obviously stuck with Michelle for the Melbourne Cup.
“But this fellow owned 50 per cent of Count Zero, so 50 per cent of the horse became available. One of our group actually already owned five per cent of him.
“Atlantis Dream had been retired, so Darren rang us and said, ‘Look, do you want 50 per cent of this one? I think it will stay’. So that’s when we got in, when he was a two-year-old.”
Count Zero ran eight times for Weir, notching two placings before winning a relatively weak 2100-metre Swan Hill maiden at start number five.
The three starts that followed didn’t inspire too much confidence, but the ownership group was still keen to see the son of Zed stretch out over much further.
So, when Weir was barred from training in 2019, connections had to find another trainer for their prospective stayer, but Mirenda said Wilde was always the clear frontrunner.
“We’d always thought he would get to a longer distance, we thought that with all of our sons of Zed,” he said.
“Symon had just trained Gold Medals (NZ) (Elvstroem) to win the Grand Annual and that was actually against a Zed, in Zed Em (NZ).
“We needed someone who could jump them, get them to stay and had a beach. Atlantis Dream always used to get sore in a prep and then come up again from the beach, so that was really important to us.
“Symon ticked all of those boxes and we thought a lot of his training regime. We sent Count Zero there and the rest is history!”
And what a history it has been: in 51 starts for Wilde, Count Zero has won five times over obstacles, four times on the flat and earned roughly 30 times his purchase price in prizemoney.
He is also just the second horse in history to win both the Jericho Cup (2020) and the Grand Annual, a feat matched only by Ciaron Maher’s Ablaze (NZ) (Raise The Flag).
Mirenda thought he had seen it all with the shock Jericho win, but Thursday’s effort, preceded by a 37-length defeat just two days earlier in the Brierly, left him further in awe of the veteran jumper.
“He won the Jericho by sitting last for two laps, so I think Simon had in the back of his head that might be the way to ride him,” he said.
“But he’s always led or been second in his jumps races, he’s always on the pace … on Tuesday, he just fell asleep and he was going left at every fence,” he said.
“It was frustrating, but straight after the race, Darryl Horner Jnr said, ‘I really think we’ve got to ride him up close, and he should jump better because he’ll be keener’.”
With that feedback on board, it was a very different Count Zero who sat second throughout the 5500-metre Grand Annual.
In truth, he looked beaten a couple of times by Bell Ex One, but Mirenda had full faith in his galloper to put his head in front when it counted.
“He sat second all the way, which was perfect. When Rockstar Ronnie packed it in, we had that marathon two-horse war down the straight,” he said.
“But even when he was headed, I still thought he would win. He just fights, he always does. He’s so bloody tough, that horse.
“It’s incredible. He’s won the Jericho and the Grand Annual, the longest flat race in Australia and the longest jumps race, I don’t know if anyone will do it again.”
As an added bonus, Mirenda and fellow owner Peter Smits are also in Count Zero’s full brother Sunday Buzz (NZ) (Zed), who ran second in last year’s Jericho Cup.
Incredibly, Wilde paid less than $10,000 for Sunday Buzz in 2019, meaning the two talented stayers were picked up for a combined $32,000.
The six-year-old, who has raced 19 times for three wins so far, will be looking to go one better in this year’s Jericho.
“It’s just the two of us, me and Peter Smits, in the full brother, we basically jumped in as soon as Symon bought him,” Mirenda said.
“He was a fair way off them in the Jericho, but Symon just threw him in there at the last minute. He’s already being set for it this year, but he’ll have to win a couple of qualifying races first.”
