When will we see a local ‘battler’ horse win the Melbourne Cup again?

AUSSIES don’t gather at barbecues, bars and racetracks hoping to cheer home a German-bred horse that cost a cartel of industrialists the price of several houses. So will we ever see another local “battler” horse run in the Melbourne Cup, let alone win it? NEW PODCAST — LISTEN NOW.

WILL we ever see another local “battler” horse run in the Melbourne Cup, let alone win it? The odds against are 1000-1 and drifting. Rags-to-riches tales are now as rare as rocking horse manure on the first Tuesday in November.

In 1982 an old Mallee farmer and hobby trainer, J.V. “Curly” Burns, brought a home-bred named Dry Wine to Flemington. Curly trained Dry Wine on the farm at Tempy with enough success to get him a Cup start.

He beat five home in the race in which Gurner’s Lane beat the Winx of the era, Kingston Town, in a thrilling finish.

Curly’s descendants love that story. They still train a few horses around the countryside but their chances of “doing a Dry Wine” are roughly the same as of winning Tattslotto. Which is a pity for the Cup’s appeal to the wider public.

Nothing against the billionaires and multi-millionaires and international owners and high-powered syndicates who head to Europe annually to buy up European stayers, but they aren’t exactly box office.

More like “racing industry stakeholders” sourcing “stock” to produce “product”.

“Ultra-Rich Guy Wins Again” is not a headline to make hearts race and eyes glisten.

Aussies don’t actually gather at barbecues and bars and racetracks across the land hoping to cheer home a German-bred horse that cost a cartel of industrialists the price of several houses just days before Cup entries closed.

Before the Disneyish story of Prince of Penzance (a $50,000 New Zealand horse with at least two wealthy owners) and Michelle Payne, it’s fair to say the last real battler horse-and-owners to win the big race was in the last Cup of last century.

His name was Rogan Josh and in 1999 a Darwin schoolteacher named Wendy Green and her mates lived the dream of owning a good horse, in this case one she originally bought from her father for $7500.

Melbourne Cup winner Rogan and owner Wendy Green. Picture: Nicole Garmston

Wendy and her husband Robert drove their Cup trophy (and a crate of French champagne) the long way home to Darwin in the back of their Holden.

The farther they went, the faster word spread. A policeman pulled them over just to see the trophy and asked them to drop in on an old bloke at Coober Pedy who’d die happy if he could take a drink from it.

“Wendy in Wonderland” did that — and plenty more. The Greens stopped at every one-horse town to meet excited locals. At Marla Bore, 1050kms north of Adelaide, stockmen and station owners flocked from the outback to take a sip from the cup won by the cheap West Australian-bred horse.

But the most memorable request was from a young Aboriginal woman at Tennant Creek, who wanted her baby “baptised” from the cup. They recruited a bus driver to do the job on the theory that a ship’s captain can conduct weddings and funerals at sea. But what to use for “holy water”? Wendy grabbed a bottle of her French champagne and poured it in the cup.

The coach captain made an inspired speech that began: “In the name of great horsemen and great Australians …”

When he got to the baptising bit he asked “What are you going to name this baby?”

The reply was instant: “Rogan Josh”. Banjo Paterson would have loved it.

We don’t do Melbourne Cups like that any more. The imported horses are far better than the handicappers that local champs used to beat, but that doesn’t make them more interesting to the once-a-year fans who make the Melbourne Cup what it is.

You have to go back to a time when Cup lore was littered with the sort of stories that get polished into legends. Such as when a Mallee kid came down to ride in the big smoke and won the 1948 Cup on a patched-up crock in the first photo-finish of the race’s long history.

The kid was Ray Neville, who turned 16 the next day. The crock was Rimfire, a handsome animal with dodgy legs. Neville’s tribe of brothers and sisters listened on “the wireless” back in Birchip.

He hardly rode another winner on the flat and rode over jumps and worked as a builder but the boy from Birchip lived a long and happy life as the hero of Rimfire’s year.

Jim Cassidy was four years older than young Neville had been but his Cup win on Kiwi in 1983 lives on. Kiwi was bred for a song by his owner-trainer Ewen “Snowy” Lupton and trained around his farm at Waverley on the North Island. The big chestnut was near last at the turn but the nerveless Cassidy wove him through the field to come “from the clouds” with a withering run that made his name.

Part-owner of Rogan Josh, Darwin's Wendy Green and her husband Bob cheering their horse home in the Melbourne Cup in 1999.

Kiwi and Snowy Lupton are long gone and the veteran Cassidy well-retired, but those who saw it still recall it with wonder.

A little mare named Rivette was one of the most touching battler stories of Cup history. Rivette was trained by humble trainer named Harry Bamber, who had bred her cheaply from a racing pony named Riv, a midget thoroughbred that had raced on the unregistered “pony tracks” in the Depression. Rivette soared above her humble origins to become the first mare to win the Caulfield Cup-Melbourne Cup double in 1939, landing the bets the Bamber family and friends could scrape together.

The year before, the first female trainer to prepare a Cup winner, “Granny” McDonald, trained the eight-year-old New Zealand gelding Catalogue to win — under her husband’s name, because in those days women were not allowed training licences.

The nearest thing to a battler story this year isn’t local but he is the next best thing. The evergreen 10-year-old New Zealand stayer Who Shot Thebarman is running in his fourth Cup in five years, having already finished third and fifth, not to mention winning this year’s Sydney Cup.

“The Barman” is owned by the O’Learys, a Kiwi dairy farming clan that bought him nine years ago for $NZ10,000. That was $A8000. With Chris Waller training him, the great old battler is not the worst place bet at huge odds.

As for Australian-bred battlers, you won’t find one in the race of imported horses that still stops a nation. The nearest thing all week comes courtesy of Terry O’Sullivan, the canny Stawell trainer who produced the bush horse Dolphin Jo to run fifth in the Cup in 2007. The O’Sullivans are bringing down a young horse to run on Oaks Day.

His name? The Mallee Mob. You can bet every battler from Birchip to Balranald will be barracking for him. As a wise man once advised: “Don’t let him go around naked.”

And here’s another tip: anyone who runs into a young battler from Tennant Creek at the races should shake his hand for luck. It could be Rogan Josh, the little boy baptised with the 1999 Melbourne Cup trophy.

After all, racing names run in his family. His grandfather was named Phar Lap Dixon.

True story.

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