EMIRATES MELBOURNE CUP (GROUP 1)

WITH hearts in mouths, 97,479 on-course spectators were treated to a finale worthy of ‘the race that stops a nation’ as Almandin edged past Heartbreak City to win the A$6.3 million Emirates Melbourne Cup, gifting Lloyd Williams a record fifth Melbourne Cup as an owner.

Their respective jockeys, Kerrin McEvoy and Joao Moreira, rode superbly from barriers 17 and 23 with both going too well to sit in the pack any longer at the top of the straight.

The final 300 metres were titanic as the pair, having dispatched the race favourite Hartnell, made it a contest in two as first Heartbreak City had the ascendancy before Almandin clawed his way back, hitting the line a head in front.

Fair play to Moreira who put an arm around McEvoy to congratulate him straight away. “Yeah, it was a nice moment. Joao’s a great competitor and a really nice man and I won’t forget that for sure,” said McEvoy, now a two-time winner having saluted with Brew in 2000.

Hartnell kept on well for third adding another placing to Godolphin’s unrequited affair with the Melbourne Cup that began with Faithful Sun in 1998. Qewy was fourth ahead of the first ‘local’, the New Zealand-bred Who Shot Thebarman who ran third in 2014. Ryan Moore declared Bondi Beach’s 13th place “disappointing”, while Wicklow Brave was at the tail in 22nd.

HEARTBREAK

“It’s agonising to be beaten so close, but what a place to come and hopefully we’ll be back next year,” said Tony Martin, who won a new legion of fans, not the least from Aidan Shiels post-race exuberance (see the Youtube clip!). “I gave him all the shoving and pushing I could from the stands but unfortunately it wasn’t enough,” added Martin.

“Everything went to plan it was just unfortunate we didn’t have anything to tow us into the straight a little further. Other than that I couldn’t be happier.” Second place earnings of A$900,000 will no doubt aid the cause.

Macedon Lodge has now produced four Cup winners, beginning with Ethereal in 2001 and three for current owner Lloyd Williams, who admits he is obsessed by just one race.

“I was raised in a family of publicans and punters and this race has always been a part of my life. I remember my dear old friend TJ Smith won my first Melbourne Cup for me in 1981 with Just A Dash, and I was totally hooked,” said Williams, adding that; “There’s never enough (wins), it’s very elusive. We’re trying (to win it) every day. Starting tomorrow we’re trying to win the 2017 Cup, but whether that’s just a dream, we don’t know yet.”

Williams has spent millions on horses over the past 30 years and is very hands-on to the point that his private trainer Robert Hickmott is not allowed to talk to the press. “I am a very difficult boss, I can tell you,” he added though his praise was effusive for Hickmott and the team, particularly in relation to their rehabilitation of Almandin.

Bought in 2014 after defeating the subsequent Cup winner Protectionist in a German Group 2, Almandin damaged a tendon and didn’t race for two years. Nursed back to health, he retuned to the racetrack in June, passing the first qualifying clause for the Cup with a listed win at Caulfield over 2,400 metres in September.

He then won the 2,500 metre Bart Cummings at Flemington in October. Cleverly, this gave the handicapper just one crack at Almandin as the Group 3 carried a ballot free entry into the Cup.

Moved to 52kg’s once the field was finaised, that 2kg advantage over Heartbreak City was no doubt crucial in the dying stages of Tuesday’s race.

“In the old fashioned sense, he’s beaten the handicapper. If you were handicapping him today, I’d give him 54.5kg or 55kg. So he’s well treated,” said Williams on Cup eve, giving as good a tip as any calculating owner could.

A cautionary

Cup tale

VETERAN home gardeners will tell you; “plant your tomato seedlings on Cup Day.” Nothing like a truism to plan a framework. Fresh to the Melbourne scene, the Tony Martin camp nearly upended another well-worn truism; “no international since Vintage Crop has won first-up in the Melbourne Cup.”

The gardeners are planting earlier now and it’s just a matter of time before another well-weighted visitor surprises the locals. Time the ‘Cup scouts’ started paying more attention to the National Hunt scene as the ‘hurdlers’ continue to impress whilst locally just one Australian-bred and three New Zealand-breds made it to the gates for the 156th edition of Australia’s greatest horse race.

Keep in mind too the cautionary tale of Big Orange. Rated an even-money chance by Michael Bell if the same field was assembled in the UK, the Cup remains a very difficult proposition when you are at, or very near, the top of the Handicapper’s marks.

German fingerprints on Cup

FOR the third time in four years a son of the late German stallion Monsun has won the Emirates Melbourne Cup, a feat not even Zabeel at the height of his powers could achieve.

Missing last year with Pentire as the winning sire, Monsun was not faraway as he featured on the other side of the ledger as broodmare sire of runner-up Max Dynamite.

The German-bred Almandin, out Anatola, a daughter of Danehill stallion Tiger Hill, defeated the French-bred Heartbreak City, a gelded son of another German sire Lando, whilst the British-bred Hartnell, a gelded son of Authorized, was third.

Swan remembered

IN the build up to the Emirates Melbourne Cup, part owner Niall Reilly remembered the horse’s former owner as he told of how the Heartbreak City came into his ownership. Heartbreak City’s main owner George Swan lost his short battle with pancreatic cancer last November and Swan’s wife decided to sell his horses. When it came time to determine Heartbreak City’s future Martin approached Niall Reilly and Aidan Shiels, who already had big success over jumps with the likes of Northern Alliance and Benefficient, and they joined with another friend Donal Gavigan to form the Here for the Craic syndicate.

“He came to us first and said guys, ‘I don’t want to let this horse go and the owners want to sell the horse but I don’t want to lose him from my yard’,” Reilly told the Herald Sun. “He asked if we could work out a deal to keep the horse in the yard and keep George’s wife happy.

“We made a deal with George’s wife,” Reilly said. “Tony was a very good friend of George’s as well and we took hold of the torch and we are burning the light for him.”

Reilly, Gavigan and Sheils met and formed a friendship at the famous Irish Rover bar Shiels owns in New York.

But it wasn’t until Shiels and Reilly travelled home to watch one of their horses race a few years ago that they met London-based Swan who also owned horses with Irish trainer Tony Martin.

Then Swan was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last year. “Three months later he was gone,” Reilly said. “It was devastating and life deals us a lot of blows but you have to play the cards you’re dealt. It is sad that one of our team is gone but we will carry the torch for him.”

Cup bargain

MANY lost out on the chance for a horse who would go close to landing two the biggest handicaps in the world when Heartbreak City was bought back at the Goffs Horses in Training Sale last November €15,000.