Strong overseas challenge for Melbourne Cup
The Victoria Racing Club are pushing the boat out for this year’s Melbourne Cup and the overseas challengers are clamouring for a ticket.
This is the 150th running of the famous two-mile handicap – commonly billed in Australia as “the race that stops a nation” - and when the entries closed, with 45 foreign-trained horses, there was a strong representation for those who have made the trip Down Under before for the race which will be run on November 2nd.
Dermot Weld is the only European-based trainer to have won the race, with Vintage Crop (1993) and Media Puzzle (2002), and he has four entries including Rite Of Passage, the winner of the Gold Cup at Royal A scot in June, while Luca Cumani has entered both Purple Moon and Bauer who were runners-up in the race in 2007 and 2008 respectively.
Sheikh Mohammed has the Melbourne Cup alongside the Kentucky Derby on his list of must win races and Godolphin have had three seconds in the Melbourne Cup - Central Park (1999), Give The Slip (2001) and Crime Scene (2009) - and their nine-strong entry is headed by Cavalryman, who was third to Sea The Stars in last year’s Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe.
Aside from the prestige there is also the lure of prize money, for the race totals just over £3.6million, with a cheque of £2.15million for the winner. That dwarfs the £56,770.00 that the owners of Illustrious Blue (pictured) banked when he won the Goodwood Cup at the Glorious Goodwood meeting last week.
However, the horse’s trainer, William Knight, explained that the victory had been the catalyst to considering a tilt at the Melbourne Cup. “It’s not a definite at the moment. We’ve got other options but for me, as a young trainer, having a chance to even think about sending one out for the Melbourne Cup is fantastic,” Knight said. “And the prize money can’t be sniffed at so exciting times ahead.
“We wanted to see how he was going to run in the Goodwood Cup, because that was going to determine whether he was going to get into the race. So we only knew that on Thursday and he’ll get about 55 kilos – which definitely gets him into the race – and I’ve just been doing a bit of research to work out if it’s the right thing to do.”
One aspect that Knight will be reassured over is that Illustrious Blue should handle the travelling aspect of the project. Although his victory in the Goodwood Cup was a remarkable seventh in 14 starts he has also won at Nad Al Sheba. “He has travelled to Dubai on several occasions and he’s taken that well – so it’s not like he’s ever been away from Goodwood before. Although it’s a very long journey down there I don’t think that would be too much of a bother.”
Some horses have been known to lose their race on nothing more than an overnight journey away from their home stables but Knight knows that his horse has the right temperament for this undertaking. “That makes a big difference and that’s why I think he’s does travel well, because when you get to a different environment he seems to handle the situation fine. He’s not a buzzy type horse so he’s quite straightforward to train in that respect.”
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