Melbourne Cup hopeful The Map has taken her band of owners on ride of a lifetime
A Tasmanian-bred, South Australian-based mare bought for $35,000 has given her owners the ride of their lives, and the celebrations will be joyous if The Map wins the Melbourne Cup.
Horse Racing
Don't miss out on the headlines from Horse Racing. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Keith farmer Haydn Lines woke up at 4am one morning this week covered in sweat and with an elevated heart rate. He’d endured a Melbourne Cup nightmare.
It had nothing to do with The Map, the horse he part-owns, along with an enthusiastic group that includes graziers, stock agents, a publican, three builders, an accountant, three first-time owners and co-trainers Dan Clarken and Oopy MacGillivray.
This nightmare centred on the famous three-handled loving cup – the Melbourne Cup trophy, which is worth $750,000 on its own – and what might happen to it if, by chance, their $35,000 bargain-buy mare actually wins Tuesday’s $8m race that not only stops the nation but also interests the world.
• PUNT LIKE A PRO: Become a Racenet iQ member and get expert tips – with fully transparent return on investment statistics – from Racenet’s team of professional punters at our Pro Tips section. SUBSCRIBE NOW!
The six-year-old mare has had a golden ticket into this year’s Melbourne Cup since May, when she won the Andrew Ramsden.
The owners have been looking forward to the first Tuesday in November since that day, even if Lines has been keeping himself distracted with work on the farm.
“It’s been really busy over here, so I haven’t really had time to get nervous (about the Cup),” Lines said this week from his property in Keith, around 225km southeast of Adelaide.
“It’s been a tough year over here. We have been flat-out bailing hay and organising things with Flemington across the past week for ‘Oopy’ (MacGillivray, The Map’s co-trainer).
“That finished (this week) … I don’t know why, but I woke up at four o’clock in the morning and thought, ‘If we win the Cup, will I have to put a cover note on for the insurance?’”
Asked if he was referring to insurance for The Map, who has already won nine of 32 starts and pocketed $865,000, Lines insisted he was talking about the Cup, not his mighty mare.
“I meant insurance for the Cup, not The Map,” he said with a laugh.
“We all don’t mind a drink. I woke up worrying that if we won, we might get drunk and lose the Cup!”
BUYING THE MAP
In a Cup that now pits some of the richest owners in this country – and indeed the world – against each other, with international bloodlines so distant from Australia, and with mega-sized stables involved, the story of The Map and her co-trainers, as well as her excitable group of owners, provide a welcome throw back to the past.
That’s not to say the owners of this Tassie-bred, South Australian-based mare are not well off. Most of them are.
But for only a relatively small outlay in the horse that went through the 2000 Adelaide Magic Millions Sales, they have had the ride of their lives.
And, four years on, the ride is still rolling on.
The filly came into the world at Armidale Stud in Tasmania on November 1, 2018, five days before another international raider, Godolphin’s Cross Counter, won the Melbourne Cup.
She wasn’t called The Map then, of course. She was the daughter of leading Tasmanian stallion Alpine Eagle out of the mare This Moment.
Her breeder, Richard Sadek, thought enough of her to send her to the Magic Millions Sales, expecting her to fetch $80,000.
She didn’t get to that figure.
By that stage, Haydn Lines and a group of his fellow owners had moved on from other trainers, and were now entrenched with Mount Gambier trainers Clarken and MacGillivray, who went shopping that day at the sales.
• Racenet’s Melbourne Cup sweep
Lines, who farms a mixture of Angus cattle, merino sheep and small seed productions with his wife Poppy, had been in horse ownership for a number of years for some fun and as a distraction from the hard work on the land.
He was at the sales that day in 2000, shadowing Clarken and MacGillivray, and trying to pinpoint a few bargains.
He ended up with shares in three yearlings that day, but he says it was only good fortune that one of them turned out to be The Map.
“Rodney Dix (fellow owner) and myself went to the yearling sales with Dan and Oopy, looking to purchase a couple of horses.
“The Map was the one that did not meet any of the criteria that Dan gave us pre-sale. But structurally she was an exceptional animal.
“But he (Clarken) kept coming back to her. He kept saying, ‘I think we need to look at this one’.”
They had a budget of around $50,000 for Lot 140. In the end, with some modest opposition bidding, the gavel fell down on a call to Oopy MacGillivray for $35,000.
It was more than $40,000 short of what her breeder expected, so Sadek chose to retain a share in the horse.
“It was the best decision he has made,” Lines said.
Clarken, now 58, and MacGillivray, 52, backed the new addition to their stables by keeping some of the ownership themselves.
They are among seven individual names as part of the ownership in the racebook, while there are also three syndicates involved.
As Lines said: “The breeder kept his share in the horse and Oopy and Dan are also a part of the ownership. Paul Cousins is a first-time owner, as is Geoff and Bernadette Davidson.”
• Melbourne Cup barrier draw: Luck deserts Waller but Irish are smiling
“So there are three first-time owners in the horses. That’s why they are not in a syndicate, as we didn’t know if they would ever come back into a horse.
“Blair Hayden is an old friend of Oopy’s and her late husband (businessman Duncan MacGillivray). Blair is a Sydney publican.
“One of the syndicate names is run by Rodney Dix, which includes farmers, stock agents and graziers from the local area (not far from Mount Gambier).
“There is the Gambling Graziers, that’s my one. We are a mix of mid-north farmers and stock agents, one accountant and three builders.”
All of the owners will be there at Flemington on Tuesday, and they agreed to let breeder Richard Sadek to be the one to choose the barrier on Saturday night.
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
It’s not just the racetrack story of The Map that is catchy for racegoers, even those five dollar punters looking to choose a horse for the Cup.
It’s the mare’s name too.
So how did she come by it?
Well, it pays homage to her home state. The Map … (of Tassie).
“She’s changed our lives,” Lines said, and he’s not talking about her $865,000 prizemoney.
It is about the experience and the journey.
“Mate, she has been incredible, we’ve had the ride of our lives.”
Lines tries to make the hour and a half journey from his farm in Keith to Brinkley, just outside of Mount Gambier, as often as he can to call into the stables.
“I was up at the stables (last) Tuesday night, and she (The Map) was on the treadmill. She is a reasonably placid horse. But when she goes to the races, she knows it is game day.”
The Map will make the trek across to Victoria on Sunday, where she will be based in Ballarat, before her date with Cup destiny on Tuesday.
• Broken nose can’t stop Kah to Victoria Derby glory
He says he couldn’t be more grateful for the hard work and dedication of Clarken and MacGillivray.
“We are so grateful to them. It’s incredible to be a part of a small stable. It feels like they are just a part of our extended families,” he said.
Clarken has been around horses most of his life, with the knockabout trainer’s most successful horse being 2013 Blue Diamond Stakes winner Miracles of Life.
But The Map can change all that next Tuesday if she can salute in the Melbourne Cup.
MacGillivray grew up around horses too, riding on the family farm before graduating to evening and showjumping.
She was born Julia MacGillivray, but her sister couldn’t pronounce her father’s nickname for her ‘thruppence’. She’s been Oopy ever since.
Clarken trained a horse for Oopy and her husband. But when her husband died in 2014, she wanted to rediscover her love of riding horses.
In doing so, she went to Clarken’s stables to do some track riding for him, and a bond was formed. Now they are partners on and off the racetrack.
THE RACE TO FLEMINGTON
The Map was a success on the track from her very first star, winning on debut at Balaklava in September 2021.
Two starts later, she won at Morphettville.
She graduated through the ranks and on Melbourne Cup day last year, the mare produced one of her best performances to win the Macca’s Run over 2800m.
Jamie Kah rode her that day, and she won by more than four lengths to frank herself as a good staying mare on the rise.
A second in the Adelaide Cup this year showed her credentials over 3200m, as Clarken and MacGillivray – and the rest of the ownership group – started to dream of the Melbourne Cup.
She booked her ticket into the Cup in the Andrew Ramsden, a moment that brought Haydn Lines, and even a few of his fellow owners, to tears.
With Kah riding Okita Soushi on, Rachel King will be on The Map, making it an all-girl combination which will resonate with punters.
Lines said of the Andrew Ramsden win: “Mate, I was the one who had to apologise (on radio) to my kids because I was photographed crying.”
It guaranteed a return to Cup Day this Tuesday, not in the Macca’s Run this time.
Line’s son, Lachlan, won’t see the race though. He will be slaving away in a university exam, oblivious to the result.
His daughter, Daisy, also had her last Year 12 maths exam on Cup Day, but she’s on a very tight schedule to get to Melbourne for the big race.
“She (Daisy) has about 40 minutes to get from the exams to the flight and then she is meant to land in Melbourne at 1.30pm. She needs everything to go right to make it.”
Lines and his wife Poppy drove over to Melbourne on Friday, and his parents Glad and Daphne have also made the trip.
Every one of The Map’s owners will be at Flemington on Tuesday. They will celebrate win, lose or even dead-heat deep into the night, as long as the mare gets through fit and well.
“We’re all going to the Central Club Hotel in North Melbourne,” he said. “I rang (the publican) and he’s happy to host us, no matter how things pan out.”
And five hundred kilometres away, in one of the Keith pubs, Lines says of the locals: “it’ll be well and truly going off.”
“Whatever happens, we’ll all be having a good time.”
Originally published as Melbourne Cup hopeful The Map has taken her band of owners on ride of a lifetime
Hurdle revelling in Revelare’s journey to Flemington
A chance request sent jockey Ryan Hurdle on an exciting journey with hot prospect Revelare that could take in a fourth straight win at Saturday’s Flemington meeting.
Treasurethe potential: Laurie excited about Oaks winner’s return
VRC Oaks winner Treasurethe Moment will return in the Group 2 Angus Armanasco Stakes (1400m) at Caulfield next Saturday.