CROSS COUNTER, FIRST BRITISH-TRAINED HORSE TO WIN THE MELBOURNE CUP, GR.1

Little showcases the fighting Australian spirit like a Melbourne Cup day with harsh weather conditions. The first Tuesday in November can be a tricky one when it comes to weather. You could get gale force winds, searing heat, or a cold snap with driving rain. The 2018 Melbourne Cup will be remembered not only for the event itself, but also for the deluge that flooded Flemington in the hours leading up to the main race. While some runners relished the heavy track, others floundered — and with them so too did the hopes of punters across the globe. The weather played havoc in the lead-up to the Cup as torrential rain forced delays to races and impacted trains running to Flemington before the sun came out in time for the main event. The area was drenched with more than 46mm of rain falling on Flemington before 12.30pm (AEDT). According to the Bureau of Meteorology, Flemington’s rainfall on Tuesday was more than it received in September and October combined.

Terry Evans, who has been working as a bookie for the Melbourne Cup since the early 80s, said it’s the worst he’s seen in more than 40 years. Paul Thompson, who has worked more than 36 years at Flemington, said he’d hardly received a bet all morning. “This is solid rain at the wrong time of the day. People are deciding whether they will come or not, it’s very hard to say yes to attend the Melbourne Cup when you look outside and there’s heavy downpours like this.”

The massive downpour which sent Flemington into chaos didn’t just cause carnage for punters it also claimed some of the key Cup participants. Leading trainer Darren Weir mis-timed his run and was nowhere to be found as his horse Fifty Stars saluted in Race 3. He was stuck in traffic and had to watch the race on his phone. It was left to Weir’s racing manager Simon McCartin to front the cameras after the exciting four-year-old won his fifth race from seven starts. “It’s pretty hectic coming in,” McCartin said. “But he’ll be here shortly. He’ll have a smile on his face.”
English trainer Charlie Fellows also struck traffic issues and was late arriving on track although he did make it in time to see his horse A Prince of Arran finish third in the Melbourne Cup.

Even so, jockey Kerrin McEvoy, in conversation with the press the day before the race, said he promised to keep his word should he win the Melbourne Cup astride Cross Counter. McEvoy declared that he would buy his wife, Cathy, and four kids a new mansion in Sydney if he could get Cross Counter home. He’s been big on the promises of recent times given he told his children he’d buy them a swimming pool if he won The Everest on Redzel which he did.
Magic Circle soared into favouritism following the deluge, shortening from $8 to $6 at one point before drifting back out to $7 when the clouds cleared, replaced as the punters’ preferred option by Yucatan, who shortened to $6.

It was Cross Counter that made history by becoming the first British trained horse to win the Melbourne Cup. It was Charlie Appleby who saddled the 8/1 winner that was ridden by jockey Kerrin McEvoy to win the 158th running of Australia’s most prestigious race. Cross Counter led home a 1-2-3 for British-trained runners from Marmelo and A Prince Of Arran. The Melbourne Cup was first staged in 1861 and victory had eluded British-trained hopefuls despite victories in recent years for runners from Ireland, France and Germany. Seven of the 24-strong field came from Britain this time, with the horses needing to be in quarantine for a fortnight before making the 12,000-mile flight to Australia in an adapted jumbo jet. Victory has edged closer with an increasing quantity and quality of contenders – there had been eight second-placed finishes before the three-year-old Cross Counter finally ended the drought.

After Cross Counter passed Marmelo in the slop of Flemington to win the race, a hoodoo was lifted, a dream fulfilled, and somewhere in a desert palace a yelp of delight was heard. Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum has been so eager to get his hands on this trophy for 20 years, that it gave the race the kind of international cache it desperately craved. The failure of the Sheikh’s many runners to cross the line first in this race seemed to prove that, quite literally, that money could not buy everything, a message even more poignant in the ever-less-likely event of Godolphin’e blue-blooded runners being beaten by a local challenger. Godolphin also won the Epsom Derby for the first time, with the Appleby-trained Masar this year.

Weather fun at the races.

Runway set the early pace on rain-softened ground in the world’s richest two-mile handicap race worth A$7.3m (£4m) and Australian jockey McEvoy managed to avoid serious trouble at the rear of the field as The Cliffsofmoher, ridden by Ryan Moore, was injured. McEvoy claimed his third Melbourne Cup after switching wide to launch his challenge in the straight, passing the Charlie Fellowes-trained A Prince Of Arran and edging out the fast-finishing Marmelo, representing Hughie Morrison. “I thought, mate, is this happening again?” said the ecstatic 38-year-old jockey from Streaky Bay, who also won on Brew (2000) and Almandin (2016). Finche in fourth was the best of the Australian challengers, with O’Brien’s Rostropovich fifth. The Cliffsofmoher, trained by Aidan O’Brien was put down after sustaining a fractured right shoulder in the race. It’s yet another death in the ‘race that stops a nation’, following the recent demises of Admire Rakti and Araldo (both in 2014), Red Cadeaux (2015) and Regal Monarch (euthanized after a fall in race four of 2017).

McEvoy – wife Cathy share a moment

Just after he weighed in following his third Melbourne Cup win, Kerrin McEvoy was asked about his house declaration in the Herald Sun. “I did,” McEvoy said. “I did promise the swimming pool and then Cathy and myself have been looking around for a bigger house and I said to one of the Herald Sun reporters that if I won, I’d buy Cathy a new house so look out!.” This was music to his wife’s ears. “We’ll be definitely on the lookout now.” Cathy, the sister of Melbourne Cup winning jockey Michelle Payne, was glad she was able to be at Flemington to see her man win the big race given she was otherwise engaged in 2016 when he saluted on Almandin. “I said to Kerrin last night because I missed out when he won on Almandin because I was pregnant, I said, ‘Please win it tomorrow, because I feel like I’m here and I missed out that year’. I can’t believe it.” Jockeys get a set fee of five per cent for a winning ride which pockets McEvoy $200,000 but given he’s just won Godolphin its first Melbourne Cup you can expect His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum might dip into his pockets for some extra coins.

If not for Godolphin’s drought breaking win, the Melbourne Cup might have otherwise been remembered for the classic “four-season-in-one-day” weather, that briefly threatened to have the race postponed until the second Thursday in November, then bright sunshine that left some frisky runners sweating as they entered the barriers.