Melbourne Cup 2015: Michelle Payne and Darren Weir’s triumph a story for the ages
ONE of Australian racing’s saddest stories found the happiest of endings when a motherless female jockey rode into folklore on a cheap horse owned by ordinary Aussies.
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YOU couldn’t make it up. Sack the scriptwriter who comes up with the sort of outrageous fairytale that unfolded at Flemington.
It goes like this. One of Australian racing’s saddest stories found the happiest of endings when a female jockey, whose mother died when she was a baby, rode into Melbourne Cup folklore on a cheap Kiwi-bred horse owned by ordinary Aussies, trained by a Mallee kid who taught himself to be a world-beating horseman.
Not only was Michelle Payne the only female rider in the legendary race, she was the first to win it.
Of course, the scriptwriter insisted it be an omen bet: the race marked the 100th anniversary of the first female Cup winner, Edith Widdis of Rosedale in Gippsland, who owned the 1915 Melbourne Cup champion Patrobas.
The script also called for outrageously long odds against everyone involved.
Jockey Payne and trainer Darren Weir have both succeeded despite odds even longer than the 100-1 quoted against their horse, Prince Of Penzance.
Let’s start with Michelle. The 10th and youngest child of the transplanted Kiwi horseman Paddy Payne can’t remember the mother she lost when she was barely six months old.
Mary Payne was killed in a car crash not far from the family stables outside Ballarat in 1986, not long after the clan had crossed the ditch.
The Payne family could have fallen apart but it didn’t. They stuck together and looked after each other as best they could.
Big sister Brigid was 16 then. She helped raise her baby sister. But that’s not all she did. Under the eye of their canny Kiwi father, the Payne girls learned to ride racehorses the way their brothers Patrick and Andrew did, and they rode them very well. Eight of the 10 Payne kids were licensed jockeys.
“Old Paddy” had learned to ride in New Zealand in rodeos and over fences and he knows plenty about anything with hoofs, not to mention horns.
The Payne boys got heavy and went training and the girls retired from the saddle. All except Michelle.
She survived a potentially career-ending smash some years ago to become Australian racing’s finest female jockey, a career pioneered in no small part by her big sister Brigid.
If the story was all about happy endings, Brigid would have been there to see her kid sister beat a man’s world, but she couldn’t. She died of a heart attack in 2007 at 36, after recovering from a heavy fall from a young horse.
But there’s more to the Payne story. Michelle’s brother Stevie was born with Down syndrome.
But like baby Michelle and the others, Stevie was raised to work with horses. Few work harder or are better at their job.
Stevie Payne is now a vital component of the Darren Weir training empire. He is renowned for his attention to detail, loyalty and hard work. That’s why he was strapping Prince Of Penzance on Cup Day.
That’s why, on a cold May morning at Warrnambool’s Lady Bay, you see Stevie wading through freezing water to lead horses in and out to stablehands swimming horses behind a rowing boat.
That’s why you hear him “going crook” at a fellow strapper: “The boss will kick your arse if he sees you do that.”
There’s not much glamour at that end of racing. In an industry built on dreams, the strappers are the factory labourers. But occasionally dreams come true, the way they did when Stevie was thrust centre stage with his instantly famous sister and “the boss”.
Darren Weir could easily be mistaken for a farmer, a farrier or a horse breaker.
He’s a strong bloke who prefers action to words. When interviewed on radio, hours before the greatest moment of his career so far, he laughed in embarrassment at being described as “a super trainer”.
But Weir talked sense. He said he wasn’t in the habit of entering horses in the Melbourne Cup to “make up the numbers” and would be disappointed if Prince Of Penzance didn’t finish in the first 10. He was right.
Those who know him best are not surprised at the inexorable rise of the kid from Berriwillock. Such as the former instructor from that well-known Mallee institution the Sea Lake Pony Club, who declared yesterday that the Weir kid could always “ride anything”.
There’s a strong streak of Irish — not to mention Kiwis — in Australian racing. Anyone who has followed the story of the Cummings dynasty, or of the O’Leary family with their horse Who Shot Thebarman, knows that.
Banjo Paterson, the galloping poet who knew racehorses as well as rhymes, once wrote a verse called Father Riley’s Horse, about a race in a country district where “the folk were mostly Irish round about” and had all backed a mystery galloper “lent” to the local priest.
Paterson wrote about the dark horse: “…the hopes of all the helpless, and the prayers of all the poor, will be running by his side to keep him straight”.
That’s how it was at Flemington as the Ballarat Irish barracked for their local champions, the O’Leary clan barracked for Who Shot Thebarman — and all the other Irish yelled for the “jumper” Max Dynamite.
Max Dynamite’s wise trainer Willie Mullins will be sad to miss first prize — and a betting coup plotted in Ireland.
But if he had to lose the Cup then it couldn’t have gone to a better home than the Paynes and Weirs and their yelling, cheering, crying owners.
There’ll be some sore heads around Ballarat on Wednesday.
Bec’s out-of-this-world Caulfield Cup outfit
Melbourne’s most fashionable frocked up and flocked to the Caulfield Cup on Saturday, with bold colours and dramatic headwear trackside favourites. But it was one fashion-forward WAG whose holographic jumpsuit had the punters talking.
What’s open on Melbourne Cup day
THE RACE that stops the nation is here. If you’re confused on what’s open or what services are running, look no further because we have all you need to about the Melbourne Cup public holiday.