WHEN Michael Kinane combined with Dermot Weld to win the Melbourne Cup, 30 years to the day on Thursday just gone, he knew it was an enormous achievement but the full extent of that enormity didn’t dawn on him until he walked into the reception area of his hotel the following morning.

Slightly worse for wear after a grand evening of celebration, Kinane was expecting to get out to the airport and make his way home, but was greeted with half the media in Melbourne, which incorporated television crews, lights and microphones.