For Oopy McGillivray, there’s something deeply cathartic about horses.
She’s happiest when she’s in the saddle, on the lead or even cleaning out yards.
It’s one of the main reasons why horses have been a constant part of her life although at times, they’ve taken a back seat to business and family.
In one way it’s ironic but in another, completely tragic, that her return to “picking up shit” came when her life turned to shit.
In 2014, McGillivray’s husband Duncan, an iconic South Australian entrepreneur whose business interests spanned agriculture, viticulture and hospitality, had a fatal heart attack while on a family holiday in Bali.
In McGillivray’s own words, the sudden and unexpected loss of her husband was “an absolute jolt” and amid the grief and uncertainty, she returned to the thing she knew that she could derive at least a small amount of joy from.
Horses.
“Sometimes you need an absolute jolt in your life to completely reset things and make you ask yourself what you really want to do,” McGillivray said.
“One thing about my late husband is that he lived life every day and he probably fit four lives into his lifetime.
“So I really learned something from him which was that you need to say yes to things, take opportunities and back the decisions you make.
“When he passed away, I was being advised by really sensible people who said that I’d be OK but maybe it was a good idea to get a nice nine-to-five job just in case.
“With that, my eyes glazed over and I walked out of the lawyer’s office and the first thing I thought about was the horse I had in training with Daniel (Clarken) at Morphettville.
“I always loved the horses and I always felt like I’d get back to training them one day.
“I rang him (Daniel) and said that I was coming down the next morning, I was going to pick up shit and help him get his horses across to the track and do a bit of work for him.”
Clarken and McGillivray are South Australian racing’s odd couple.
But they work so well, both in horses and in life.
Clarken, a G1-winning trainer in his own right via Blue Diamond heroine Miracles Of Life, is a master horseman. Laconic but firm when he needs to be and a trainer that has forgotten more than most will ever know.
McGillivray, who trained briefly in her 20s in Victoria, is well-spoken and well-respected across the state’s agriculture and viticulture industries. With a gentle touch in the saddle, she’s the first to admit she’s learned plenty from Clarken.
They first met as neighbours and McGillivray saw Clarken’s gift with horses up close. She and her then-husband sent him their horses to train.
“When you have a tragedy in your life, you need something,” she said.
“I had two small boys to get through school but the horses became such a positive thing in my life.
“Anyone that loves horses will know that, at a very basic level, they make you feel good.
“I honestly cannot tell you where the training license started and the romance began but as things happen, we became romantically involved.
“Daniel lived in Macclesfield which is where I moved to and because we had this common interest in horses, we met along the way.
“I took a young horse over there one day, I was five months pregnant trying to break it in and I was thinking about getting on it but I thought it wasn’t the most sensible idea so I walked it up the road to Daniel to hop on it for me.
“After about 30 seconds, he was riding it bareback.
“That was pretty much how I selected him to train my racehorses at the time.”
The Clarken and McGillivray training partnership began with instant success in 2018 when Blue Morpho won the Listed Laelia Stakes at 50-1. Since then, they have trained 109 winners together, including 10 at Stakes level.
On Saturday, they will chase a G1 win together when emerging filly Mating Class tackles the Australasian Oaks.
A last-start G3 winner that was fifth in the G1 Thousand Guineas during the spring, McGillivray has always known the daughter of Brazen Beau could become something special.
Jamie Melham takes the reins on the filly in Saturday’s $1 million classic, for which she is rated $9 with Bet365.
“Form very early, when she came her to be broken in, she has always shown and athletic ability that is well above average,” she said.
“What goes with that to make her such a lovely horse is that she has an outstanding nature.
“She loves her work and she just does things right.
“She’s absolutely super, she’s definitely come on from her last run and she looks very healthy.
“All her work since has been positive so we’re really looking forward to it.
“Professionally, it’s the pinnacle of our sport to train a Group 1 winner.
“To do it with Daniel and to do it from the farm and the setup that we’ve created here would be a huge thrill.”
