Cox Plate 2014: Adelaide delivers billionaires ultimate prize while battler Mick Burles’ The Cleaner fairytale is over

AT about the time the misty eyes of the racing world were being drawn to a small town in Tasmania, there was movement elsewhere, at the big end of town.

Races.Cox Plate Race Day.Race 8 Cox Plate.Connections of the winner 'Adelaide' after the Cox Plate was run.Picture:Ian Currie

AT about the time the misty eyes of the racing world were being drawn to a small town in Tasmania called Longford, there was movement elsewhere, at the big end of town.

The fairytale of Saturday’s Cox Plate was Mick Burles and his best mate The Cleaner and it stretched until the halfway mark of the short but cruel Moonee Valley straight.

As the little Tasmanian finally succumbed to the stitch, an Irish horse called Adelaide swept to a victory not just for the toffs but for toffs with determination.

Only billionaires can win Cox Plates with global game plans.

The Cleaner posted wide on the first turn. Picture: Michael Klein

As The Cleaner was stringing his late winter wins the billionaires of Australian and Irish racing were surveying the globe.

John Ingham, son of the late great chicken king Bob, is good mates with Tom Magnier, Sydney-based son of Irish gazillionaire John Mangier.

The Cox Plate had been cruel and kind to Bob and his late brother Jack.

They’d won it with Octagonal but Octagonal’s great son Lonhro tried twice and was beaten twice.

Their three-year-old Viscount was once sandwiched into third between Northerly and Sunline and failed to reverse his fortunes in the stewards room.

So for Bob’s son John, the Cox Plate was a race of unfinished business.

Tom Magnier (left) poses with Adelaide after the Cox Plate. Picture: Getty Images

As for the ridiculously rich Magniers and their revered Irish trainer Aidan O’Brien, the Cox Plate — and the Melbourne Cup — had been races of regret.

Last year Magnier’s global stable, Coolmore, had raging favourite Atlantic Jewel in the Cox Plate but she injured herself and was scratched.

In 2008 O’Brien sent out a swarm of runners in the Melbourne Cup and they collapsed as one at the home turn.

O’Brien was dragged back to the racetrack long after the race by chief steward Terry Bailey to explain what went wrong.

O’Brien was insulted and has never been back.

So there were scenes of jubilation in the mounting yard after Adelaide, ridden by po-faced English superstar Ryan Moore, rounded up our hapless best to become the first international winner of the race.

Ingham explained: “Tom and a few mates of ours … we’d been talking about a horse we could bring to Australia for the Melbourne Cup. But we got a Cox Plater (they bought into Adelaide after he won in Chicago in August) and here we are today.’’

Ingham said Adelaide was the perfect Cox Plate horse, albeit plucked from a glamorous squad at Ballydolye in rural Ireland.

“He was just the horse to suit Australia, liked firm ground, nice action and versatile,’’ he said.

The memories of Lonhro and Viscount were laid to rest in a “very, very pleasing moment.’’

Magnier celebrates the victory with connections. Picture: Ian Currie

Nearby, Coolmore’s Australian-based Irishman Michael Kirwan was also explaining that past demons had been exorcised.

Kirwin said “you only dream about these things’’, adding it was “massive, massive’’ after the disappointment of Atlantic Jewel a year ago.

Cox Plates are not delivered on plates, even for the billionaires of racing.

Lloyd Williams is mighty rich and powerful but none of that helped Fawkner provide the billionaire with his first Cox Plate. Fawkner ran second.

Adelaide was set a monumental task. “Everything was against him,’’ Kirwan said. “The weight scale, it was the end of season in the northern hemisphere — the jockey rode a great race, he’s a superstar.’’

Few were arguing Moore’s superstar status after he summed up a foreign, saucer-like track perfectly; swooping at exactly the right time, exploding home down the outside.

Fawkner (grey) battled on for second in the Cox Plate. Picture: Ian Currie

Moore politely fended off world’s-best talk, and that ride confirmed it. “To be honest with you one race will never tell you a lot about a jockey,’’ he said, adding that if he’d been beaten he’d have been “an idiot.’’

Moore said his greatest problem was his strategy.

“I had five or six different speed maps and been told so many different instructions,’’ he said, adding his aim, well executed, was to creep his way to victory.

So for world racing’s aristocracy, the past was banished and victory was glorious, and hard earned.

There was more plotting, even in the mounting yard.

Kirwan reckons O’Brien will probably make an appearance next year, his first here since 2008.

If he’s not, he will certainly bring another horse; plucked from his hundreds-strong arsenal.

“There’s no doubt about that. When he wins he loves winning again. He now knows the horse required to win the big race and he will find another one and that can only be to the advantage of Australian racing,’’ Kirwan said.

As the billionaires celebrated and plotted, Mick Burles retreated to the horse stalls, sucking on his electric cigarette.

The billionaires will return, they will make sure of it. For them it’s almost as easy as buying a return ticket.

Burles has just one good horse and will never have another. For the Longford Lion, the fairytale has ended.

Originally published as Cox Plate 2014: Adelaide delivers billionaires ultimate prize while battler Mick Burles’ The Cleaner fairytale is over