Byron Cozamanis couldn’t believe his eyes when he first saw emerging stable pin-up Never Ordinary, the filly who will chase a valuable Listed win in Saturday’s Dequetteville Stakes at Morphettville.
A paltry $1250 online purchase via Inglis Digital by her owner Wayne McGuire, the Dirty Work filly arrived in SA as an unbroken yearling in 2025 and initially spent some time spelling at Performance Park in the Adelaide Hills.
Given her purchase price, Cozamanis expected to see a weedy, backwards yearling in the paddock but Never Ordinary was anything but.
“When the bloke (Wayne McGuire) bought it, he rang me and asked me to organise to get her over from Victoria,” Cozamanis said.
“I put her up at Performance Park and thought I better go to have a look at her.”
“When I saw her I thought ‘Jesus, something is wrong here’.”
“She was a nice, strong filly and I couldn’t believe that he bought her for that price.”
“We rang them (Blue Gum) and they told us they had a $100,000 reserve on her at the Inglis Premier Yearling Sale and the vets said they couldn’t sell her so they pulled her out.”
“It’s worked out good for us and she hasn’t gone sore yet at all so fingers crossed.”
The reason the filly was sold so cheaply was a set of pre-sale x-rays, which were hugely concerning to vets and which would’ve likely rendered sale at a public auction next to impossible.
The x-ray report was uploaded online by Blue Gum Farm for everyone to see and even offered an ominous warning to would-be buyers.
It was a warning that McGuire chose to ignore.
“High risk for racing,” the vet report said.
“Pretty much unsellable to anyone that looks at x-rays.”
The report recommended surgery but Cozamanis is happy to let the filly mature naturally.
To this point, Never Ordinary has not had a lame day in her life.
She was narrowly defeated in the Listed Cinderella Stakes on debut before breaking her maiden by four lengths in a metropolitan race last start.
Victory in the Dequetteville will ensure her value as a breeding prospect soars into the six figure range and Cozamanis is excited about her future, both during Adelaide’s autumn carnival and Melbourne’s spring carnival.
“I haven’t had one like her for a while,” Cozamanis said.
“It’s exciting.”
“She’ll take some beating on Saturday, especially off her gallop this (Tuesday) morning.”
“She has not left an oat, she hasn’t gone shin sore, she’s not had a stone bruise – she’s unreal.”
“She might eventually go sore on us but we’re having a bit of fun with her while we can.”
“There are a couple more Stakes races here in Adelaide so she might go to them if she keeps racing well and training on.”
“If she’s good enough, we might go to Melbourne in the spring.”
