Melbourne Cup story is always changing, writes Gerard Whateley
THE Melbourne Cup has always told our stories. It rejoiced in vaulting characters into folklore.
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THE Melbourne Cup has always told our stories.
From a time when teapots were trophies and every man in the colony could dream the impossible dream of winning the peculiar handicap ordained as our premier race.
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It rejoiced in vaulting characters into folklore. The two-bit trainer with the one good horse. The owner who would stow the loving Cup in the back seat and drive it home to Darwin.
Where the race itself might have been unspectacular, it was excused by the event. The mardi gras on course, the gathering at barbecues and bars, the drawing of sweeps, the halting of Parliament, the kids skipping class where a holiday was not observed.
A nation stopped with a sense of romance for a horse race.
But this is no longer the race we grew up with. For the most part, that is a triumph of soaring ambition and canny administration.
Rather than leave the Cup in the custody of tradition, an icon was reinvented. Today's race is everything the visionaries spoke of: an international championship on Australian turf.
The components are as rich as they are diverse. The first two horses home in each of the past two Melbourne Cups plus the trifecta from the Caulfield Cup. A Derby and Oaks graduate. The winner of the Irish St Leger, the Prix Kergorlay, the Goodwood Cup, plus the runners-up from the Ascot Gold Cup and Dubai World Cup.
As a puzzle it is almost impenetrable.
The quality assemblage speaks of a coveted, mature and self-assured race. Gone is the initial cultural cringe, a tendency to fawn over the lords and ladies of world racing.
Now it is clear the privilege is theirs and the terms of the challenge won't be compromised to accede to the wishes of visitors.
The question for the modern Melbourne Cup is does it still tell our stories.
Rather than being rotten with democracy, the Cup dream for now looks like the playground of millionaires, billionaires and royalty. And the odd football icon.
It's why Polanski - the $4000 purchase that romped away with Saturday's Victoria Derby - is the most important horse in the country. But his is a future's tale.
The local frontline is Lloyd Williams, a man who has devoted his fortune to indulge his obsession. His contribution of six runners is a magnificent, unprecedented feat.
It is to be admired rather than emulated.
We are drawn to Luca Cumani because the race eludes him but he refuses to wilt.
To Gai Waterhouse who changed the country on the day she became a trainer and has achieved most everything bar lifting the Cup.
And as always to the Cup itself, complete with the mysteries and the chance it embodies in the hope what transpires this afternoon resonates in the national psyche and celebration.
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