Agony and the ecstasy: Racing lovers from all walks of life ride the highs and lows in pursuit of spring success

This is a story about three of Melbourne’s biggest stars of TV, radio and the AFL, and a man from the western suburbs they’ve never met.

It sounds like the start of a bad joke and, to at least one them, it is.

“I’ve never met him, yet I hate him,” Ross Stevenson joked with real envy.

One half of 3AW Radio’s top-rating Ross and John program, Stevenson fell in love with racing while working alongside his mum at the Church Street TAB in Hawthorn as a teenager.

From there he started punting, and that eventually grew into the ultimate gamble: Racehorse shares.

In the past two decades, Stevenson, 61, has part-owned about 20 horses trained by some of the biggest names in racing – Chris Waller and David Hayes among them.

None have competed on the big stage of Melbourne’s spring carnival, let alone won a group race.

In August, Stevenson told us this was his spring carnival. He had two or three good ones.

It was his turn.

It’s not. His horse’s campaigns have since stalled.

That’s why he envies the man in the western suburbs.

Jack Gunston feels that jealousy because he’s lived the thrill vicariously.

The three-time Hawthorn premiership player had just turned 20 when Glass Harmonium, part-owned by his father, won the $1 million Mackinnon Stakes on Derby Day, 2011.

Three days later he was contesting the Melbourne Cup.

Glass Harmonium finished second-last, but that only made Jack more eager to return with a horse of his own.

“It was an amazing experience,” Gunston tells.

“It’s like before a grand final; everyone started thinking about what could be, what winning a Melbourne Cup looks like, and then it wasn’t to be.

“I was hooked from then.”

Two weeks ago, Gunston thought he might have an Oaks Day runner but, like Stevenson, this spring carnival is not Gunston’s turn.

Playing For Keeps star Olympia Valance, on the hand, is enjoying her second turn.

Mr Sneaky, trained by Richard Freedman, is only the second horse Valance has part-owned, but the gelding is now in his second spring carnival after finishing second in the group 1 Sir Rupert Clarke Stakes last year.

“Mr Sneaky came so close … but of course the dream is always to see him win a group 1 race,” Valance, 25, says.

“The feeling of that would be absolutely amazing.”

That brings us to a man who knows that feeling well. Our man in the western suburbs.

Joel Hitt doesn’t have a famous face, voice, or left foot, but his horses are international stars.

He opened his account with a 2.5 per cent share in Shamrocker, a filly who finished second in the 2010 VRC Oaks before winning the group 1 Australian Guineas and AJC Derby.

She won $1.9 million and was sold to Japanese breeders for a pretty price.

Next, Hitt and his mates purchased a colt called Shamexpress.

That stallion won Victoria’s richest sprint, the $1 million Newmarket Handicap, which earned the owners an all-expenses-paid trip to London to race at Royal Ascot and Newmarket.

Shamexpress won $1.2 million in prizemoney and was sold to stud.

“We were at the right place at the right time,” Hitt says, admitting he has “had a lot of slow ones since”.

Though jealousy burns, stories like Hitt’s keep owners – big names or otherwise – dreaming it’s their turn.

“There’s never been a more untrue statement than ‘I’m never buying a horse again’,” Stevenson says.

“Just when I’m out, they pull me back in.”