How a Darwin schoolteacher was given the nickname ‘Wendy in Wonderland’ by Bart Cummings before they went on to win the Melbourne Cup with Rogan Josh

This is the incredible story of how a larrikin Darwin schoolteacher combined with Cups King Bart Cummings to win the Melbourne Cup with Rogan Josh 25 years ago.

Rogan Josh’s owner “Wendy in Wonderland” chuckles when she remembers how naive she was when her horse won the Melbourne Cup and stole the hearts of a nation 25 years ago.

Wendy Green was a Darwin schoolteacher when she linked up with Bart Cummings who gave her the “Wendy in Wonderland” name when she asked him to win the 1999 Cup with a $13,000 Perth horse.

The larrikin owner fondly remembers meeting Valmae Cummings, the wife of legendary Cups King Bart, who was trying to offer some fashion tips on what to wear at Flemington on the first Tuesday in November.

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“We had drinks with Bart and Val when they came to Darwin and Val said to me, ‘and of course you will be bringing a fascinator to Melbourne for the Cup?’,” Green said.

“I looked at her and I said, ‘no, I’m bringing my husband Robert’.

“I didn't know what a fascinator was (Green thought it was a toy boy).

“I now look back on the whole event and I look back on my naivety, we had no idea what we were doing.

“Because we had no idea what we were doing, everything we did was very genuine.

“We must have looked so silly most of the time.”

Darwin’s Wendy Green and her husband Bob cheer Rogan Josh to victory in the 1999 Melbourne Cup.

The story of how West Australian gelding Rogan Josh went from obscurity to becoming a national hero takes some beating in the annals of Melbourne Cup folklore.

It was a rags to riches fairytale, with Rogan Josh originally trained by Colin Webster in Perth before being transferred to Cummings prior to the 1999 spring carnival for an unlikely bid at the Melbourne Cup.

Early in the spring, Rogan Josh opened as much as 250-1 with bookmakers to win the Melbourne Cup.

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But he was a giant-killer when winning the Herbert Power Stakes at Caulfield and then later scoring the Flemington double of the Group 1 Mackinnon Stakes and the Cup three days later.

“We thought we had won the lottery, just even getting Bart to train the horse in the first place,” Green recalls.

“We got a message back from Bart one day to ‘tell that woman from Darwin we will take the Perth horse’.

“Then Bart sent another message: ‘Tell that schoolteacher from Darwin that I charge $112 (training fees) a day, but if she starts telling me how she wants me to race the horse, then it’s $150 a day’.

“Bart probably saw us coming.

“But I loved Bart, he was the most wonderful person and he would tell the best stories.”

Rogan Josh’s Cup win – with the late jockey John Marshall in the saddle – captivated a nation and sparked incredible scenes in the days and months afterwards.

Bart Cummings holds aloft the 1999 Melbourne Cup after Rogan Josh won.

Following the iconic Cup win, Green took a month-long road trip back to Darwin and stopped just about everywhere along the way to give rank-and-file Australians the chance to drink out of the trophy.

These days, Green doesn’t drink a sip of alcohol.

She quips there is a very good reason why.

“I don’t think I was sober for 10 years after we won the Cup,” Green said.

“We drove back to Darwin with the Cup in the back of the car and I think it’s in the Guinness Book Of World Records as the longest pub crawl in history.

“Along the way, the story gathered momentum.

“When we won the Cup, we probably behaved in a different way and people really embraced it.

“I then started travelling with the Cup in an ambassadorial role and I ended up going to about 14 countries.

“I went to the Rockefeller Centre and I got a standing ovation – people just loved the fact the Melbourne Cup had come to New York.”

Jockey John Marshall guides home Rogan Josh in the 1999 Melbourne Cup.

As Rogan Josh was surging into Melbourne Cup history, there was a six-year-old wide-eyed boy who was watching the television in Sydney.

That boy was Taylor Marshall, the son of Cup-winning jockey John.

John Marshall sadly lost his lengthy battle with pancreatic cancer in 2018, but is never far from his son’s thoughts.

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Taylor Marshall is now an accomplished jockey, riding in Queensland.

He has “John Marshall” proudly emblazoned on his jockey breeches.

“I feel that me carrying the Marshall name is honouring Dad and everything he achieved in the racing game,” Taylor Marshall says.

“He was the type of person who was so modest that, when he was at home, his Melbourne Cup win wasn’t really spoken about.

“I remember watching it and not really understanding fully what had gone on, but I picked up on some of the energy of the reactions of family members around me.

“The Melbourne Cup win was a representation of all the hard work in Dad’s career.

“I know, deep down, it meant the world to him.

“There was a moment about 100m past the winning post when Dad just dropped his head.

“That moment was so emotional for him and, looking back, I can guess how he would have been feeling, to achieve the pinnacle of racing and win the Melbourne Cup for Bart.

Wendy Green starts her road trip back to Darwin after winning the 1999 Melbourne Cup.

“In hindsight, looking back at the timing of when Dad rode the Melbourne Cup winner, it was at the tail end of his riding career.

“I’m so grateful that it happened at the time it did, in the sense he was really able to appreciate it.

“I might have a bias here, but a lot of people have said to me that Dad was one of the hardest working riders out there.

“I’m so proud of Dad and everything he gave to the racing game.

“It has filtered down to our family and allowed us to live a good life and have the things we have – I just have an immense gratitude.”

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Bart Cummings passed away in 2015 and Rogan Josh lived until 2022, dying aged 29 from colic-related complications.

But the memories of their famous Cup win a quarter of a century ago live on for anyone who was a part of it.

Taylor Marshall carries his father’s name with him every time he rides. Picture: Grant Peters/Trackside Photography

John Marshall in the jockeys’ room after the 1999 Melbourne Cup.

Legendary horseman Reg Fleming was Cummings’ right-hand man at the time.

“Rogan Josh crossed the Nullarbor in a float, his form in Perth was pretty good but whether it was up to the next level was for us to find out,” Fleming says.

“The horse had a few back problems early doors, which we overcame.

“One thing with him was he used to get quite nervous at the races.

“But he just kept improving and improving.

“He ran fourth in the Caulfield Cup and it was a super run.

“Then we took him to the Mackinnon and we were pretty confident that day.

“I had some money on him but when I picked his saddle up, he had a big weight, I thought ‘I don’t know about this.’

“But he was a big horse and all credit to him, he beat some pretty good horses that day.

“We were pretty up and about after that, because we knew he would plunge in weight in the Melbourne Cup and we knew he would stay the 3200m.

“Bart sat down and had a talk to John Marshall after race three on Melbourne Cup day.

“Bart simply told him that he would be riding the fittest horse in the race, he had a light weight and to go across from the wide barrier and sit outside the leader.

“The rest was history.”

Originally published as How a Darwin schoolteacher was given the nickname ‘Wendy in Wonderland’ by Bart Cummings before they went on to win the Melbourne Cup with Rogan Josh