Caulfield Cup winner Mongolian Khan a hand-me-down of a hand-me-down of a hand-me-down

MONGOLIAN Khan, the triple hand-me-down horse who has won two Derbies and now the Caulfield Cup, is Australasia’s great hope of winning the Melbourne Cup.

Opie Bosson (Red/White) on Mongolian Khan wins the 2015 Caulfield Cup. Caulfield Cup Day races at Caulfield Racecourse. CaulfieldCup15 Picture: Nicole Garmston

A TASMANIAN-bred New Zealand-trained stayer owned by a Manchurian fast-food billionaire with wolves for pets and a penchant for big, small, fat and skinny horses beat a Pom and an ex-German in the BMW Caulfield Cup.

Not sure the Melbourne Racing Club had such a magnificently scrambled scenario on its radar when it decided some years ago to globalise Australia’s second most famous handicap race.

The race club may well have envisaged Murray Baker winning the race. One day.

The legendary New Zealand horseman, a trainer since the late 1970s, has now won 16 Group 1 races in Australia but the mega-majors had always eluded him.

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He’d tried to win the Caulfield Cup for many years. Horses like The Phantom, Harris tweed and Nom De Jeu had come close but been beaten, usually unluckily.

It’s A Dundeel suffered a setback before being beaten in a Cox Plate and Lion Tamer dropped dead midway through a Cups campaign.

So for Baker, it was a relief to be merely a part of the race with a healthy horse, let alone a dual Derby and now Caulfield Cup winner that is 2015’s great Australasian hope of prevailing in that other great international race, the Melbourne Cup.

“I’ve been coming here a long time. I think you gave me one today for good attendance,’’ he said.

The tentacles of the Mongolian Khan story spread not just all over the world but into mysterious corners of it.

Opie Bosson wins the Caulfield Cup on Mongolian Khan for trainer Murray Baker. Picture: Nicole Garmston

Mongolian’s Khan’s owner, Lang Lin, is a fast-food magnate who grew up in Manchuria (that’s in China) where he dreamt of winning the Melbourne Cup. That’s quite some far-flung dream for a young Manchurian.

Lang used to dream of horse races and horses. Any horses.

He started a riding school in inner-Mongolia — apparently some ancient horse epicentre — and fills it with a horse zoo of knee-high ponies, Clydesdales and thoroughbreds, which he buys in New Zealand.

Last year he bought 800 odds’n’sods nags, including a few he has trained at Cambridge by Baker, who described the origins of this unusual partnership thus: “Dunno, he just rang me. He has wolves as pets, did you know that?’’

The owner, dubbed “Mr Wolf’’ in New Zealand, Mongolia and now here, attended a New Zealand ready-to-run sale with Baker about two years ago.

He had his eye on a staying-type horse who’d already passed through a few hands.

Winning jockey Opie Bosson kisses the Caulfield Cup trophy. Picture: Colleen Petch

Mongolian Khan was bred at Grenville Stud, near Launceston in Tasmania. He was sold as a weanling in Melbourne for $9000, then “pin-hooked’’ as a yearling for $130,000.

By the time he breezed up for Baker and Mr Wolf, he’d furnished into something Baker could work with. The Manchurian opened his yak-skinned briefcase and wrote a cheque for $220,000.

The triple hand-me-down horse won two Derbies — in New Zealand and Sydney — and started favourite off the back of two luckless but scintillating defeats at weight-for-age.

His jockey, Opie Bosson, plays his role in this all-points-of-the-compass story, just as he played his role with the perfect ride.

“We wanted to go for home early and make it a staying test. Perfect,’’ Baker said.

Bosson is a legend back home but not as much here. He’s won everything over there many times.

Caulfield Cup winning owner Lang Lin. Picture: Tim Carrafa

He has been retired and un-retired a handful of times. He took a month off some time last year and “turned into a beach ball’’.

Bosson rode “the lightest he had for ages,’’ Baker said.

Despite the presence of the super-strong Japanese and two super-strong Europeans, Baker suspected he had the best stayer in the race. Mongolian Khan drew well but Mr Wolf’s instructions were emphatic: “Get stuck on the rails and I will feed you to my wolves.’’ (Or something similar).

Bosson cut loose on the turn and Mongolian Khan dashed clear, fending off Trip To Paris and Our Ivanhowe.

Mr Wolf was last seen with a big gold Cup full of local beer heading to the BMW marquee, high-fiving racegoers, posing for selfies that will become timeless images of a truly, bizarrely, internationally flavoured Caulfield Cup.

Originally published as Caulfield Cup winner Mongolian Khan a hand-me-down of a hand-me-down of a hand-me-down