It wasn’t meant to be for Frankie Dettori in the Melbourne Cup as the obvious was ignored
HAVING decided Almandin would win back-to-back Cups we wanted to warm to Frankie Dettori, but as our worst fears were confirmed it became apparent we had ignored the obvious.
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WE’LL start with acknowledging it has happened before.
Foreign jockeys have managed to come to Flemington on the first Tuesday in November and win the Melbourne Cup.
In fact, four times this century the visitors have done it.
We’re not great mathematicians, but that would suggest the odds are very much in favour of the locals when it comes to steering the winner in Australia’s biggest race.
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This is the sort of research that is required before the race — not after a wipeout with steam coming from one’s ears.
Against all we stand for, at 10.37pm on Monday night and after hours of study, we decided Almandin would win back-to-back Cups.
The fact this rarely happens was looked at, but we couldn’t get that win at Flemington in September out of our head.
Yes, he rose in weight from last year, but 56.5kg isn’t exactly the grandstand.
What troubled us was the jockey, but even then we searched for reasons to warm to Frankie Dettori.
There was a bit of “it-was-meant-to-be”, with the Italian star getting a last-minute call-up after Damien Oliver was suspended in the Cox Plate.
Plus, he had never won one and Lloyd Williams had said he was determined to get one for his mate.
At 3.01pm our worst nightmare became a reality.
Almandin was in barrier 14, and let’s just say Frankie’s attempt to get across wasn’t successful.
He was three wide after 400m — we stopped watching and focused our attention on our best outsider, Tiberian.
This is where our decisions make no sense — he is a French horse ridden by a French jockey.
Olivier Peslier had his first look at Flemington on Derby Day and was suspended twice for separate careless riding charges in the same race.
That probably should have sounded warning bells, but we fell into him at the $31 despite him drawing barrier 22.
The beauty of Tiberian, purely from a watching perspective, was that the fluoro yellow colours of Darren Dance’s Australian Thoroughbred Bloodstock meant our eyes were continually drawn to him.
Peslier settled four wide out the back and did the right thing at halfway and decided to surge forward.
Despite this set of circumstances, Tiberian was clearly travelling the better of our two selections at the top of the straight.
In fact for a few fleeting moments Peslier seemed to be sitting pretty while everything else around him suddenly came under pressure.
Then we spotted a couple of Williams horses — not Almandin — poke through either side of him, and from that moment it was all about praying for third place.
By the 200m that haunting moment of reality kicked in.
We were gone.
A quick scan of the potential placegetters realised that our dozen First Four bets, placed meticulously the previous evening, were in danger because of the horse running third in the pink colours.
Max Dynamite had been one of only nine horses we deemed not capable of running a place. Error.
For the fun of it we looked back to see how our man Peslier was travelling.
Miraculously, the horse hung in there and somehow finished seventh in what was nothing short of an extraordinary performance, beaten nine lengths.
Frankie’s three-wide adventure had managed to get Almandin to 12th.
As the dust settled and bets were rechecked in the hope of a fluky error, some hard facts were presented.
Winner Rekindling drew barrier four and was ridden by an Australian jockey.
Runner-up Johannes Vermeer drew barrier three and was ridden by an Australian jockey.
Max Dynamite drew barrier two and was ridden by an Australian jockey.
Anyone spot a trend here?
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