‘She was the boss, I was on her time’. How the first leg of the Makybe Diva’s Cup trilogy changed the lives of those closest to the mare
Strapper Donna Stewart was one of the unsung players in Makybe Diva’s first Cup win 20 years ago. Two decades on, she speaks of her connection to the champ and that wild day in November 2003.
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‘Your horse just won the Cup, love, congratulations.”
Donna Stewart will never forget the chaos unfolding around her during the running of the 2003 Melbourne Cup as Makybe Diva – the mighty mare she was strapping at the time – laid the first platform for what would be a history-making Flemington trilogy.
The only issue was, she wasn’t sure the Diva had won at the time.
As she found her “favourite spot” in the old members’ stand alongside co-worker Jodi Patros (nee Brothy), the sea of people clambering to see what was going on meant it was hard to tell what was happening.
As Stewart recalled this week, 20 years on from the Diva’s first Cup win: “As the field rounded the home turn, not only could I not see anything, I wasn’t even aware she had won.”
“I also couldn’t hear over the roar of the crowd and Jodi’s excited chatter trying to keep tabs on the stable’s three runners.”
Stewart wasn’t sure of the result until “a lady in front of us turned and exclaimed ‘Your horse just won the Cup, love, congratulations’.”
“Watching the replay, I saw the gaps magically opened up at the right time and she was able to weave her way through them to go on and win.”
Stewart’s connection to the horse who raced her way into Australian hearts remains special all these years on.
She wasn’t there when the Diva won her subsequent Cups – in 2004 and 2005 – as the only horse to win three.
By that stage, the mare had moved to Lee Freedman, and Stewart had to watch history unfold on TV.
But in 2003, she was front and centre.
“She (Makybe Diva) wasn’t one to suffer being fussed over with a lot of grooming, though she did like to be ‘noticed’,” Stewart recalled.
“She’s a very intelligent and observant horse, always watching and seemingly analysing her surroundings. The Diva could turn a five-minute walk to the swimming pool into a 20-minute stint … stopping and staring into the distance ... take a few steps and repeat!
“I had been instructed to never pressure her into moving on. She was the boss; I was on her time.”
Stewart knew she had to keep her horse away from Cup runner Grey Song.
“It was more a case of keeping … as much distance between ourselves and saddlecloth No. 11 Grey Song’s hind legs,” she said. “He was a notorious kicker, more often than not hitting his target.
“With the Diva carrying No. 12, we weren’t really left many options for avoidance.”
She marvelled at how composed Makybe Diva was after holding off the fast-finishing She’s Archie in the Cup.
“I just remember the Diva being her usual cool-headed self, posing for photos and wanting to stare off into the distance,” she said.
The strapper admits she wasn’t as composed.
“I’m not one for the limelight and didn’t want to hand her over to the swab steward so I could get up on the presentation stage to receive my trophy (the Tommy Woodcock Award),” she said.
“After a fair bit of egging on from (trainer) David (Hall) and Bossy (jockey Glen Boss), I finally handed her over and climbed up on stage. David was ribbing me up there, (saying) ‘You have to make a speech’.
“I just walked Diva back home to the stables with her stablemate Pentastic (who finished fourth) and his strapper Erin Nicholson.
“We simply bedded them down after their long day and joined the other staff on the lawn.”
Stewart remained as Makybe Diva’s strapper throughout her next campaign, culminating in a Sydney Cup win.
“It was a sad moment when David (Hall) announced he was departing to Hong Kong and the stable would close, with everyone’s horses moving to new trainers,” she said.
“I was invited by the Freedmans to join their team down at Mornington with Diva, having worked for them as a strapper/assistant foreman through most of the 1990s.
“They knew how much I cared for ‘my’ horses. Unfortunately, I wasn’t in a position to make the move at the time.”
She instead had to then watched the Diva’s two subsequent Cup victories from home.
“I do remember feeling a bit sorry for her 2004 cup strapper Bernadette, who copped an absolute drenching that day. But she sure looked happy.”
Stewart looks after the spelling horses and retirees at Lindsay Park these days – she has worked for the Hayes family for 18 years – with the same care as she did with the Diva.
But on Cup day, the memories of the mighty mare – who is now 25 – always come flooding back.
TONY SANTIC, owner
Tony Santic had practice, he knew how to celebrate the 2003 Melbourne Cup dream.
A year to the date earlier, minus four days, Santic and friends partied “like there was no tomorrow” when Makybe Diva emerged as a stayer of the future with a Group 3 success at Flemington.
Makybe Diva arrived in time to win the Queen Elizabeth Stakes (2600m), the legend-in-waiting mare’s sixth-straight triumph after being beaten on debut at Benalla.
A notional “we’re in the Cup” after-party slogan would ultimately become a self-fulfilling Santic prophecy.
“Bear in mind you never think about (the fact) you’re 12 months away,” Santic recounted.
“A lot of things happen in 12 months, (but) we celebrated like there was no tomorrow, unbeknown to us in 2003 we had a good chance.”
Santic was like any other owner – a dreamer.
Happy to get a horse into a Melbourne Cup, lest the fantasy of actually winning one.
He would go on to celebrate an unprecedented, and unlikely to ever-be-repeated three consecutive Cups.
“For the three Cups I was a mess for six weeks before and after, but mind you I wasn’t the only one,” Santic laughed.
“I had plenty of help.”
Makybe Diva‘s legacy means Santic, now 70, is asked about the great mare almost daily.
It happens down the street.
Sometimes at the school when picking up the grandkids.
When people recognise him, they always ask: “How’s she going?”
“I just tell them ‘she’s great, if she stops eating her apples I’ll get worried’.”
DAVID HALL, trainer
David Hall is grateful for what was rather than what might have been with his association with one of the legends of the Australian turf.
As Makybe Diva’s original trainer, he oversaw the first part of her career which included her campaign to win the 2003 Melbourne Cup.
But he had to watch from his Hong Kong training base when the Diva went on to win two more Melbourne Cups, happy for the horse and the connections.
“I don’t think you can ever say you are confident going into a Melbourne Cup,” Hall said this week. “But we had confidence she was ready to run a hell of a race.”
“Watching her successes (in 2004 and 2005), it was probably a little bittersweet. No one could have predicted she would go on and win two more (Cups).”
Hall, now 60, couldn’t be more proud of his role in the Diva story, and for recommending Lee Freedman to Santic as the mare’s new trainer when he decided to move his operations to Hong Kong in 2004.
“It was very satisfying that I put her in the right hands so that she could reach those levels” he said.
“Obviously, she just matured and matured after she won the Sydney Cup (in 2004) … I advised Tony she would be better trained away from the track, so we sent her away to the Freedmans, and she went to another level.”
The memories of that 2003 Cup win still burn bright for Hall.
“The Cup was sponsored by Tooheys that year, and at the time I was sponsored by Tooheys, too, so we had all of my family and friends in their (corporate) box overlooking the mounting yard,” he said.
“The celebrations went long into the night. I was a little late for a few media appointments the next day.
“We were at Silks, at Crown that night. We were all over the moon. There was one special moment when Bart (Cummings) called in and congratulated me.”
Hall is coming up to his 20th season of training in Hong Kong after building a successful career abroad.
But the horse he is still asked 20 years on about is the Diva, who is now 25, and living a great life in retirement at the farm named after her in Gnarwarre, on the Victorian Surf Coast.
GLEN BOSS, jockey
It was the 2003 call that would change Glen Boss’s life.
He was lamenting another missed Melbourne Cup opportunity, telling good mate David Hall about his bad luck in Australia’s most sought after race.
He had been lipped out in heartbreaking circumstances in the 1998 Cup on Champagne by Jezabeel.
“I took six months to get over that,” Boss said.
Five years on, the horse he believed could give him his first Melbourne Cup – Republic Lass – had gone amiss.
“Republic Lass was meant to be my headline act … she had been one of the favourites for the Melbourne Cup,” Boss recounted.
“I rang David to have a whinge. I was having a bit of a cry about my horse going wrong.
“He said ‘Don’t worry, you can ride that horse Pentastic (whom he had ridden into fifth spot 12 months earlier) or you can ride the mare ... as she will probably get 50 or 51 kilos in the Cup.”
The mare was Makybe Diva.
He rode her in a track gallop leading into the Caulfield Cup, and was on her at the Heath where she ran a strong fourth.
“She came into my life and the rest is history,” he said of the 2003 Melbourne Cup.
“I knew what I had with her. All I’d have to do was to get her in the right spot the first time at the winning post.
“I got to the fence and she just gave me an incredible ride. We knew we could hold her much longer than anything else, as she had such a good turn of speed.
‘That was my weapon. I could just sit and wait as she could make up six lengths quickly.”
Boss told himself that he had to “keep my s— together” between the 600m and the 400m, then start a burst.
“The last 300m of a Melbourne Cup feels like 600m,” he said. “You are saying ‘Please, let nothing come (from behind); it is the weirdest feeling.”
Maybe Diva changed Boss’ life in three minutes and 19.9 seconds.
“Once you win a Melbourne Cup, it changes your life forever,” he said.
“You can win Cox Plates or Derbies, but the one you want to win is the Melbourne Cup.
“We didn’t know then that she would deliver us with another two Cups.”
GREG MILES, racecaller
Racecaller Greg Miles recalls tipping Makybe Diva’s stablemate Pentastic in her first Cup victory in 2003.
And former jockey Alf Matthews didn’t let him forget it!
“We didn’t know what was about to unfold when she won her first Cup in 2003,” Miles said.
“She had stamped herself as a good Flemington mare, having won (the) Queen Elizabeth Stakes (in 2002).
“She was well in the market ($8). But I think I tipped Pentastic. I was working with Alf Matthews at Sky at the time and Alfie was all over Makybe Diva.”
The mare jumped perfectly out of gate 14 with Boss edging her into a nice spot, albeit “15 lengths from the leaders” at stages.
The gaps opened for Boss into the straight as Miles said: “Makybe Diva is going for a run, she is finishing hard … Makybe Diva shot away” as She’s Archie stormed into second place.
“She won very dominantly that day, but you didn’t really expect her to come back the next year and win, and the year after that too,” he said.
Miles’ ‘A champion becomes a legend’ line for the Diva’s third Cup in 2005 is one of the most famous in racing.
“On the Monday (before the 2005 Cup), I was on a panel on RSN and one of the guests was Bruce McAvaney and he said: ‘I’m sure Greg has already got a line prepared for Makybe just as I had for Cathy (Freeman) in 2000,” Miles said.
“I hadn’t actually thought of anything, so it was a bit nerve wracking when one of the great sports broadcasters said that.
“I was replaying the Cox Plate and I said something like ‘What a legend she is’, so I thought to myself, ‘I will massage that’.
“That last Melbourne Cup was one of my toughest calls. I was petrified that I might miss something with her, so I made sure I was calling four or five horses then glancing back at her.
“Bossy looked after her and gave her the perfect ride, and the rest is history.”
Originally published as ‘She was the boss, I was on her time’. How the first leg of the Makybe Diva’s Cup trilogy changed the lives of those closest to the mare
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