Americain causes upset in Melbourne Cup
They flocked in their tens of thousands to Flemington in the hope of seeing a coronation. What they got was a horse race.
So You Think had been backed as if defeat in the Melbourne Cup was out of the question. In the previous 10 days this powerfully built four-year-old had won two Grade Ones at Flemington, the Cox Plate and the Mackinnon Stakes.
Those races were both over 10 furlongs but the fact that his trainer, Bart Cummings, had not expressed any great doubts over the horse’s ability to stay the extra six furlongs – “that’s why I bought him” Cummings said before the race - meant that most of the 120,000 on the track backed the horse to become a 13th Cup winner for Cummings on just his 12th career start. But it was not to be.
The day had started wretchedly for Luca Cumani, who was runner-up with Purple Moon in 2007 and Bauer 12 months later. His chances this time took a hit long before the race started after Bauer was ruled out after failing to satisfy the local vets of his fitness. Just to rub salt into the wound Drunken Sailor, another of Cumani’s intended runners, missed the cut for the race by just one place when the final declarations were made on Saturday.
That left Manighar to carrying the hopes of the Cumani stable but there was further drama when Blake Shinn – who rode Viewed to win in 2008 – was stretchered from the course after a fall in one of the earlier races. His place on the other Cummings-trained runner in the Cup, Precedence, was taken by Jamie Winks as the 23 runners were loaded into the stalls.
There was not much pace early on as Once Were Wild took the field down the back straight. So You Think broke well but was finding the slack tempo at odds with his naturally exuberant stride.
So You Think’s jockey, Steven Arnold, had stressed before the race of the importance of his horse relaxing through the first mile to allow Arnold to conserve as much of his resources as possible, on ground that had been turned good to soft by persistent rain, before the final half-mile.
The plan still appeared to be working out well for Arnold, against the odds, as the field hit the home turn. Having managed to smuggle So You Think into the front rank at the top of the home straight, he took the lead with about 250 metres to run but was cut down by Americain, trained in France by Alain de Royer-Dupre and ridden by Gérald Mossé.
Mosse had Americain, who had already won the Geelong Cup a fortnight ago, tracking So You Think when he made his run and then came through to win by two lengths with Maluckyday catching So You Think for third. Zipping finished in fourth place for the third time.
Holberg finished best of the other European runners in sixth for Frankie Dettori who said: “The ground was too wet and he lost his chances there.”
“I’ve ridden the big races world-wide. It’s my second Melbourne Cup, it’s good to be here, it’s good to participate and it’s a special feeling to win,” Mossé said.
That feeling was not sullied by pre-race nerves but Mossé did admit that he had a moment’s anxiety when he thought that So You Think had got first run on him. “I never get nervous [before a race]. I get nervous when I see the favourite at the 700 [metre-mark] cruising between horses. I was a bit stuck and I say ‘I need to find a way to not let him get too far’ because he’s going too hard to catch him up. Then I was clear and I know my horse is very strong and he will give me a special turn of foot.”
But, even as American accelerated to become only the third European-trained winner of the Cup (following on from the Dermot Weld pair of Vintage Crop in 1993 and Media Puzzle nine years later) Mossé did not have eyes for the glittering prize but simply the winning post. “I keep focussed until the winning post – because you never win a race before the winning post. I know at the 200 I’m going to make it.”
It was about that point when Arnold knew that he was not going to make it, despite the way that So You Think battled on bravely when the tank was clearly empty. “I thought he ran super. It was a bit of a stop-start sort of a race and it just got him out of his rhythm. I would have liked him to just flow along at an even tempo.
“Kicked good at the top of the straight and then peaked at the furlong. The winner was just too strong.”
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