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Nov. 8, 2011 - It was one for the ages. Less than a nose separated them at the wire, and as a worldwide audience watched and waited for a winning number to go up, the possibility of the first-ever dead-heat in a Melbourne Cup crossed everyone’s mind. Waiting on horseback just after the finish was former jockey John Letts, a two-time winner of the Cup himself, saddled with the task of interviewing the successful rider on the way back to scale. Initially, Letts went over to escort Michael Rodd on chestnut Red Cadeaux, but the slow-motion replay seemed to tell another story, French rival Dunaden, having stretched the neck forward right on the line. With the result hanging on a thread, 105,979 on-track fans were glued to the tote board and television monitors. After a ride he never expected to have, French jockey Christophe Lemaire raised his fists in jubilation as the numbers finally came through. Dunaden had just won the tightest photo in Melbourne Cup history. The Emirates Melbourne Cup delivered a truly international finish. French, British and German horses – Dunaden (8/1), Red Cadeaux (49/1) and Lucas Cranach (13/1) – ran one, two and three, with defending champion, Americain, a close fourth. In sheer numbers alone, this year more than ever, the locals were always going to be up against it, given the majority of runners in the 23-horse field was from overseas. The equation first changed drastically in 1993 with the hit-and-run campaign by Irish stayer Vintage Crop. Melbourne Cup victories by Media Puzzle (2002), Delta Blues (2006), Americain (2010) and now Dunaden (2011) indicate that the trend has gathered momentum and is here to stay, not surprising, given the AU $6.2M purse that pays down to 10th. The increasing frequency of international winners is also a product of the Victoria Racing Club’s aggressive marketing of its signature race across the world that has primarily targeted the European horses. Not only is the style of racing there comfortably similar to that of Australia, word is well and truly out as to just how tangible and lucrative a target the Melbourne Cup is becoming for trainers from that region. Cries from leading Sydney trainer Gai Waterhouse earlier in the week that the Australian breeding industry needs to place more emphasis on stamina, along with her alarm that key races such as the Brisbane Cup, formerly a 2-miler, are down to a mile and a half, look sure to be revisited now that the 151st Melbourne Cup is in the books. Breeding for speed has always been an issue in the US, where racing is presented in a very different manner from most other leading racing countries. It was therefore encouraging to seeU.Sshipper Unusual Suspect carry the hopes of Old Glory that had been sorely missing in the traditional Melbourne Cup Eve Parade down Swanston Street in Melbourne’s Central Business District which boasted the national flags of previously internationally represented runners. The Barry Abrams team can hold its head up high. No, Unusual Suspect did not threaten to win but connections did go home with AU $125,000 for finishing ninth. Victim to a slow early pace, the 8-year-old only began to find stride at the top of the lane and had to weave home from last into the stretch, his momentum significantly stopped on one occasion and badly tightened for room on another. Jockey Brad Rawiller who stepped in for suspended brother, Nash, tried desperately to make up for lost time but got going too late. Racing Victoria’s Chief Handicapper, Greg Carpenter was complimentary of the horse’s effort, quick to point out his traffic woes. At neither end was anyone expecting Unusual Suspect to be a world-beater but the commendable performance opened the door on U.S. participation. Colleague, Overseas Coordinator Lee Jordon described the States as “the last frontier” in the internationalization of the Melbourne Cup. The potential is there for even more serious U.S. contenders in the future but first, there need be a racing center in the States where horses bound for the Cup can quarantine and train for an extended time prior to their departure to Australian shores. Any breakthrough in quarantine regulations would pave the way for horses to be flown down under to capture the Cup with a similar turn-around to their European counterparts. In Australia, Unusual Suspect remained in the barn of Cranbourne trainer Michael Kent and raced three times in the state of Victoria prior to the Melbourne Cup. Oddly enough, the first of his prep races, the Feehan Stakes (1 mile) occurred on Sept. 10, the very same day the courageous runner-up, Red Cadeaux, tackled his final lead-up race, the Group 1 Irish St. Leger (1-3/4miles). His Newmarket trainer, Ed Dunlop, could not really argue that the lengthy break cost him the Cup since the margin of defeat was so miniscule. In post-race interviews, the winning team was all smiles but David Levitt, manager of Pearl Bloodstock Pty that owns Dunaden took a moment to pay special tribute to Australian rider Craig Williams and to losing trainer Ed Dunlop. Williams lost his appeal against a 10-day racing ban handed down on Bendigo Cup Day, Oct. 26, less than 24 hours before the Cup. Williams had piloted Dunaden to his Group 3 Geelong Cup victory and appeared to be riding the crest of a wave with wins either side of it in the Group 1 Caulfield Cup on Southern Speed and the Group 1 Tattersalls Cox Plate on Pinker Pinker. “I would just quickly like to say that Craig has been tremendously helpful, and the ride that he gave the horse at Geelong was outstanding. We’re obviously very sorry that he could not take the ride again, but we tried every channel we could together and although he didn’t see Christophe, he spoke to me regularly, kept us in the picture the whole time. It’s very, very tough for him and tough for the Dunlops as well. It was a tremendous training performance by him. He’s obviously very, very good at it, so I guess you’ll see a bit more of him as well.” Wherever you go, racing is full of dramatic twists and turns. John Velasquez stepped in at the last minute to replace Robby Albarado on this year’s Kentucky Derby winner Animal Kingdom, and Christophe Lemaire flew half way around the world to gain an 11th hour ride on Dunaden to snatch this year’s Melbourne Cup. “I arrived yesterday afternoon. I was very well welcomed. I could walk the track with the foreign jockeys, with the clerk of the course, so I had a lot of information before I even got on the horse in the big race. You have the excitement of the race, especially a few minutes before in the paddock, but once you are on the horse the pressure goes down, and then you are in the race and at your job, really concentrated. It is more concentration than pressure.” And concentrate he most certainly did, getting his horse to switch off early, gather momentum a half mile out and work into the clear half way down the stretch. The tension of the photo finish proved more nerve-wracking than the head-to-head battle to the wire with Red Cadeaux. A perfect one-for-one in Australia, Lemaire described his Melbourne Cup triumph as “the second best moment in my career. The first one was the Prix de Diane (2005) -- it is like the French Oaks in France -- because all my family was there and, I was on a champion horse called Divine Proportions, and today is very special because I’ve heard of the Melbourne Cup before, but you really have to see it to believe it. It’s really something special.” Trainer Mikel Delzangles followed in the footsteps of long-time peer and countryman Alain de Royer Dupre who won the Melbourne Cup last year with Americain. The defending champion lost few admirers in his late-closing fourth, inches behind Anthony Freedman’s Lucas Cranach, who looked a real chance in mid-stretch to become the first German import to win the Cup. Dezangles did confess to some apprehension about taking Dunaden outside of his comfort zone. “We knew he was a good stayer since his win at the beginning of the year in France and I must say it was Sheik Fahad who wanted to send him to Melbourne. Personally, it was so difficult a problem that I was a bit worried. Thanks to the Sheik and Americain last year, they made us look forward to doing it.” Consecutive French victories in the Melbourne Cup feel anything but random coincidences. If the European nations have taken a firm grip on the 2-mile handicap, Americans are only just beginning to get their feet wet. This year’s running time of 3.20.84 on a turf track rated a GOOD 3 was anything but exceptional. The rapid turn of foot displayed by the top two finishers is what seemed to separate them from the pack, not their speed and clearly neither had any stamina issues. The odds are stacked against American runners for a number of reasons, the same reasons that equally discourage Australian horses from heading to the States, as Greg Carpenter so succinctly put it. “I don’t want to go down the path of level playing fields, but obviously our racing here is totally drug-free, and all our racing is on turf. It does restrict the opportunities that are available, and of course the Breeders Cup, as wonderful a carnival as it is, clashes directly. It is a timing issue as well.” As hard as it is to argue with each of those points, let’s not forget that American stallions have already produced Melbourne Cup winners, such as Americain (2010) by Dynaformer and Kingston Rule (1990) by Secretariat. U.S. racing now needs to take the next big step and find what this year’s winning trainer Delzangles described as “the right horse at the right time.” With the key racing states of Victoria and New South Wales betting over AU $110M on the Emirates Melbourne Cup alone, you’d be hard pressed to find a country where horseracing is as consistently part of the culture as in Australia -- believe me, I haven’t -- and certainly never manage to find a “race that stops a nation.”
The U.S. warmed
to the idea as an active player this year. I’ll be hoping for them
to turn up the heat, quite possibly an “unusual heat” in 2012. | ||
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A
CUP FOR THE AGES
