Melbourne Cup 2015: Preferment could bear fruit for part-owner Peter Tighe

THE Melbourne Cup has visited exotic ports from Ireland to Uluru but there is one place it has never been: the Rocklea fruit markets.

Moonee Valley

THE Melbourne Cup has visited exotic ports from Ireland to Uluru but there is one place it has never been: the Rocklea fruit markets.

But, if Preferment wins the Cup, it might be time for some of the markets’ 3000 employees to put down their cases of tomatoes for a historic happy snap.

The horse’s part-owner Peter Tighe, a second-generation veteran of the Rocklea markets and director of 108-year-old fruit and vegetable wholesalers JH Leavy, is on the hottest run of his horse-owning life.

He had owned horses for 20 years without having a Group One winner but the drought has been broken with five Group One wins in the past year. Stable star Winx has won three, including last Saturday’s stunning Cox Plate victory.

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The prospect of a Cox Plate-Melbourne Cup double in the same year is almost too grand to contemplate and he has promised to give away 1000 trays of mangoes if Preferment wins the Cup.

Preferment ridden by Blake Shinn works at Moonee Valley . Pic: Michael Klein

“We are in with a chance,” Mr Tighe said. “I am happy to have a runner and enjoy the day and if we win it would be a bonus.

“There are nine owners in Preferment. It would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to win it and we would have to sit down and I am sure everyone would get a turn (at hosting the trophy). Graham and Linda Huddy, from Mt Isa, are in on the horse. I have said before we would love to bring the trophy home to Queensland and show it off.

“The owners are spread far and wide. I would like to bring it (the Cup) to the markets. It would definitely be on our radar to show it to people. The Melbourne Cup has been to Ayers Rock. Wendy Green took it in a car in Outback Australia when Rogan Josh won to places which had never seen it.

“There is not much point in taking it home and putting it on the mantelpiece. That is not what it is about.”

The day after winning the Cox Plate with Winx, Mr Tighe took a call from Nick Moraitis, owner of champion Melbourne Cup winner Might And Power, and another man who made his fortune in the fruit and vegetable industry.

The fruit and vegetable community, from farmers to forklift drivers, is a varied, but tight-knit group. After the Cox Plate, Mr Tighe received more than 200 text messages, from city dwellers to the fly’s footprint of Gumlu, in far north Queensland, from where pumpkin farmer Mark Nobile sent his best.

“He was one of the first to send a message,” Mr Tighe said. “I have been there. I know them all. I have been travelling there for years. Bowen is a big port for us and we do a lot of tomato business up there in the winter. They live and breathe it with me and are right into the excitement.”

As he was leaving Moonee Valley Mr Tighe showed off the Cox Plate trophy out of the window of his car but requests for photos started well before that. Returning to the markets was a special joy. It was where Mr Tighe’s father worked for more than 40 years, taking over the business from original owner JH Leavy.

“Around 3000 people work here and I reckon 2950 of them have come up and offered congratulations over the last few days,” Mr Tighe said. “The fellows here were still congratulating me three and four days later.”

Mr Tighe has developed a solid relationship and admiration for Chris Waller, who trains Winx and Preferment.

“He is a well organised and very professionally run business. We speak freely. He does not gloss up the story if he wants me to buy a horse and I tell him if I don’t like it.”

Originally published as Melbourne Cup 2015: Preferment could bear fruit for part-owner Peter Tighe