Trainer Ed Walker admits Ruscello shouldn't have run

Number 24, gate 24 and if not for Verema breaking down, UK raider Ruscello would have finished 24th, or last, in the Melbourne Cup.

Damien Oliver wins the Melbourne Cup on Fiorente (left) with Ruscello nowhere in sight. Picture: Mark Evans

NUMBER 24, gate 24 and if not for Verema breaking down, UK raider Ruscello would have finished 24th, or last, in the Melbourne Cup.

English trainer Ed Walker said after the race that he should have trusted his gut feeling and not run his five-year-old gelding so soon after winning last Saturday's Group 3 Lexus Stakes.

Walker said the three-day break before the race did not give Ruscello enough time to recover.

Ruscello was an accidental starter in the Cup after his unexpected Lexus win and one which denied Bart Cumming's Precedence getting a run.

"He owes us absolutely nothing,'' said Walker, whose charge would at least have won some office sweep punters money for finishing last.

"He ran a career-best on Saturday but my gut feeling after the Lexus was probably the right feeling - that it wasn't fair to run him three days later, but we had to give it a go.

"You never really know how much a race has taken out of him.''

He praised jockey Chad Schofield for his ride saying that when he realised the horse was done he looked after him and nursed him home.

Ruscello has never managed a group win in the UK and was outclassed in this field which contained 13 individual Group One winners.

He will now stay in Australia with Simon O'Donnell's OTI syndicate while Walker returns home to look for a two-miler that he can bring back for another shot at Australia's most famous race.