WHEN Patrick Mullins was asked to describe some of his father Willie’s greatest strengths in the aftermath of the champion trainer’s astonishing 100th Cheltenham Festival winner this year, a constant openness to change was identified as one of his biggest fortes.

“He’s always chopping and changing things, he’s never standing still,” said the most successful amateur rider in history.

“He can’t be told ‘no’,” Mullins added, doubling down on his previous description of the training colossus as someone who “isn’t a prisoner to doing things exactly the same… changing the way he does things every year”.

It might well be that Mullins’ willingness to experiment with change could yield a historic turnaround come 4am Irish time this Tuesday.

In the 164th running of the Lexus Melbourne Cup, a very different preparation is being counted on for a very different result than 12 months ago with Vauban.

Heading into this weekend in 2023, the locals around Flemington seemingly felt a sense of formality that the AUD$8.56 million prize would be heading to Co Carlow through Susannah Ricci’s runaway Royal Ascot winner. A breathtaking piece of work at the track in the lead-up helped him in shortening into the race’s clear favourite.

However, that highly-anticipated bid ended in disappointment. The 2022 Triumph Hurdle winner was only able to finish 14th, beaten 13 and a half lengths.

You might ask what is the change that connections have tinkered with in their preparations for the 2024 Cup? Well, the answer is multi-faceted.

Different preparation

For starters, Mullins has been on the record as saying Vauban travelled to Australia as a much fitter horse this year than in 2023.

After bolting up at Royal Ascot last year, the Galiway gelding had just one further start in a Group 3 at Naas before appearing in the Melbourne Cup. He was racing off close to a three-month absence.

Instead, he has been much busier this time, with three runs since Royal Ascot and a gap of just over seven weeks since his last outing.

The dual-purpose campaigner has also been cutting his teeth in better company, and posted a cracking second to none other than Kyprios when last seen in the Irish St Leger.

Tactics are another key point. Vauban was in front after two furlongs when he won at Royal Ascot last year and raced handier than anything that played a serious role in the finish of the 2023 Melbourne Cup, sat in fifth of the 24-runner field with a circuit to race.

It’s well worth noting the early comments in running for the first six finishers in the race last year: winner - “settled on inner in rear of midfield”, second - “settled towards rear”, third - “in rear of midfield”, fourth - “towards rear of midfield”, fifth - “settled in midfield” and sixth - “in rear of midfield”.

That paints a clear picture of the type of race that unfolded. Handy was not the place to be, so do not expect to see him there on Tuesday. You only have to watch back his Irish St Leger second - behind the best stayer in the world - to spot that he was last with two and a half furlongs left to run.

Ticking the boxes

The preparations at Werribee have been different too. Unlike last year, there was no trip to Flemington for a wow-factor workout, and a later overall arrival date was implemented (“I thought they were away from home far too long,” Mullins noted of the 2023 travel plans).

A lead horse, offered by top trainer Ciaron Maher, has also been seen as a benefit this time around, as Vauban has not had to do the heavy lifting for stablemate Absurde - last year’s seventh, who is absolutely no back number on his return.

Another detail mentioned, however big or small, is that Vauban’s coat has been clipped since arriving down under this year. As trusted assistant David Casey explained: “We didn’t clip him last year and his coat looked great until about four days before the Cup and it turned. Obviously on the day it got very hot and we feel that had an effect on him.”

Casey, overseeing what he reckons is his eighth trip to Melbourne in 10 years, added: “You try everything you can. It didn’t work last year, so we’re trying something new this year.”

Nobody can accuse the Mullins camp of being idle in their bid to turn the ship around down under. It feels as though the findings from a serious post-mortem upon returning from Flemington last year have been investigated with military-like precision.

Despite the disappointment of 12 months ago, Vauban still finds himself high in the market as 5/1 second-favourite. To go from expensive blowout to Melbourne Cup winner in the space of a year would rank as another ridiculous achievement that only the rare few like Willie Mullins can pull off.

Set your alarms for Tuesday morning, folks. Change might just be coming with a new name on the world-famous Cup.

DESPITE the controversial withdrawal of Aidan O’Brien’s ante-post favourite Jan Brueghel this week, there is absolutely no getting away from the European influence on this year’s Lexus Melbourne Cup.

Of the 29 remaining entries ahead of today’s barrier draw (not all certain to run), 20 are currently or were previously trained on this continent. With stunning Cox Plate heroine Via Sistina (also a former Group 1 winner in Ireland) diverted away from the race that stops a nation too, a major shake-up has come to the market in recent days.

The ex-Joseph O’Brien-trained Buckaroo is now favourite, with odds ranging from 100/30 to 9/2, after finishing second in the Caulfield Cup. Crucially, he was only beaten a head by Via Sistina a fortnight earlier in the Group 1 Turnbull Stakes.

Onesmoothoperator, Brian Ellison’s Northumberland Plate winner, is now third favourite at as short as 9/2, having been as big as 100/1 when first arriving down under. The collapse in his price has come thanks to an emphatic Geelong Cup win 10 days ago - a truly remarkable rise considering it’s only two years since he was beaten at odds of 1/2 in a maiden hurdle at Sedgefield. The six-year-old picked up a cut on his right hind heel bulb this week and will be re-inspected by Racing Victoria vets today after being re-shod.

“The handicapper seems to think he’s a top-five horse in the race, but the price is unbelievable, isn’t it?” Ellison told The Irish Field.

“If I said to anyone before we left that he’d be among the favourites, they’d think I was crazy. I think he’s grown another leg for coming to Australia.”

The aforementioned Absurde (10/1) picked up the County Hurdle at Cheltenham since his southern hemisphere visit last year, and he appeared to be in particularly good heart when exercising at Werribee this week.

Sea King, trained by Newmarket-based Harry Eustace, was slashed from 66/1 to 7/1 with some firms, after bolting up in the Bendigo Cup on Wednesday - meaning the four European-trained runners all feature in the top five in the betting.

It’s quite the indicator of the wider influence on the race from these shores that it’s 20/1 and upwards before finding a non-European import in the ante-post market.