Robert Craddock: Why we should give Surprise Baby a big cheer in the Melbourne Cup

Surprise Baby, the horse bought for just $5500, can revive the romance of the Melbourne Cup by upstaging some of the world’s best stayers, writes ROBERT CRADDOCK.

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Come on Surprise Baby, surprise us.

Do it for the dreamers and the battlers. Take us back in time to when the Melbourne Cup was the race of the masses and the masses could actually afford to be part of it.

Before oil rich sheiks and casino moguls made the Cup their personal fiefdom there were plenty of ordinary Australians who luxuriated in Cup success.

When the Cup was first run in 1861 it was seen as the symbol of Australia’s egalitarian society, a handicap race that levelled the gap between the princes and the battlers.

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Trainer Paul Preusker will be chasing a dream victory bargain buy Surprise Baby in the Melbourne Cup. Picture: Micheal Klein

Surprise Baby, purchased online for $5500 by Brisbane bayside resident John Fiteni, is the horse that on Tuesday can prove that David can still sometimes crash tackle Goliath.

Bravery comes in many forms in horse racing. It can be a jockey squeezing through a gap, a horse giving something when its gone.

But buying a horse for $5500 online as Fiteni did, partially because he liked the way it walked, takes a special sort of courage because its cheap price suggests there must have been something wrong with it.

There wasn’t.

Some of the Cup’s most memorable tales involve cheap horses and battling licensees.

Back in 1999, Darwin schoolteacher Wendy Green famously saluted when her $12,000 purchase Rogan Josh powered to an underdog victory.

Wendy and her husband drove the Cup back to Darwin through Australia’s dry, brown interior and stopped at every one-horse town along the way, taking a crate of French champagne on their journey.

Darwin schoolteacher Wendy Green owned 1999 Melbourne Cup winner Rogan Josh.

At one point a policeman stopped them for a selfie and several aboriginal children were named in honour of Rogan Josh, including one who was baptised out of the Cup in Tennant Creek.

Stockmen came from distant regions to see the Cup on a journey colourfully documented in Green’s book of her year as the Cup champion, Wendy In Wonderland.

Gala Supreme was another superb against the odds story in 1973 for few Cup winners have ever had to go through more crippling setbacks on their path to Cup glory than jockey Frank Reys.

Raised in far North Queensland as one of 14 children of a Djiribul Aboriginal woman and Filipino father, Reys used to break in wild brumbies as a boy.

Jockey Frank Reys rode Gala Supreme to victory in the 1973 Melbourne Cup.

He was a skilful jockey though it was written that he had so many falls one of his nicknames was “Autumn Leaves”.

In the years before his Cup win Reys had an horrendous fall in which he smashed his pelvis, shoulder cheek bone and ankle. It took him 10 months to recover.

Gala Supreme drew barrier 24 but Reys rode it brilliantly to win by a nose.

Early in its life Gala Supreme was sold for $2000 to a service station owner but given back to its breeder because of concerns over hits blood count.

It just goes to show. For all the tests and theories you just never know what’s under the “bonnet’’ and when you are going to get a bargain.

Just ask the online shopper who picked up a $5500 star of the turf.

Melbourne Cup contender Surprise Baby was bought for $5500 in New Zealand. Picture: Getty Images