Melbourne Cup 2016: Frankie on notice after last year’s mayhem
CHIEF steward Terry Bailey says he hopes a fast pace will help avoid a repeat of last year’s Melbourne Cup mayhem when multiple runners were effectively knocked out of the race.
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CHIEF steward Terry Bailey says he hopes a fast pace will help avoid a repeat of last year’s Melbourne Cup mayhem when multiple runners were effectively knocked out of the race.
Superstar international rider Frankie Dettori finished second on Max Dynamite, but not before skittling other horses. The England-based Italian was suspended for a month for his actions and fined $20,000.
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Dettori, riding top Irish-trained hope Wicklow Brave on Tuesday, pleaded guilty to careless riding after stewards found he shifted ground abruptly when not sufficiently clear, causing interference to Gust of Wind and in a chain reaction, Hokko Brave, Grand Marshal, Preferment and Kingfisher.
Stewards found that the heavy contact to Grand Marshal almost caused the horse to fall.
“We got shoved to the side and I was coming off,” jockey Jim Cassidy said.
“But I have to thank (Hugh) Bowman because I bounced off him and stayed on. I’m lucky to be still here. Do I get a prize for staying on?”
Bailey on Monday night said that the inference caused by Dettori was probably the worst he had seen.
But he said there would be no special reading of the riot act at Flemington on Tuesday, that practice having fallen by the wayside.
“The know the rules and the know the penalties if they breach them so we won’t be wasting their time talking to them about it,” Bailey said.
“If we can get a bit of speed in the race it will help. A nice tempo generally lends to a cleaner race.”
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Dettori is back for his 15th attempt to list the Cup when he rides the fancied Wicklow Brave for Willie Mullins.
“My wife’s relatives are from Australia and New Zealand, so we have some family here and they keep on nagging me that I have never won the Melbourne Cup,” he said on Monday.
“I went close last year when Michelle (Payne) beat me. I went back home and they said you got beaten by a girl. But she is a good rider. I am here trying again.”
Dettori, who was at Monday’s Call of the Card at Crown, joked that he didn’t know whether Australians liked him because of the one-month ban and fine at his last attempt.
But he joked that he thanked Bailey for the suspension because it allowed him to take a holiday.
Mullins on Monday joked about Dettori’s ride in last year’s Cup
“I think Frankie said his right indicator cost him $20,000 so we made sure this year he wouldn’t have to use it,” he said
“We’ve got him drawn in 24 and Frankie, wherever you are in the room, it’s left the whole way.”
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