Small-time trainers and knockabout owners keeping the Cup dream alive

It was in South Australia that the Tasmanian-bred filly The Map found Dan Clarken and his co-trainer Oopy MacGillivray.

As the pair – who are partners in life as well as racing – walked around the Adelaide yearling sales early in 2020, they kept bumping into one animal who had arrived by ferry from the Apple Isle.

Oopy MacGillivray and Dan Clarken with their Melbourne Cup runner, The Map.Credit: Justin McManus

“Every day this horse stuck its head out and said ‘come and have a look at me’, so eventually we thought ‘let’s look at her’,” Clarken recalled.

She had not been on their list of dates, but she struck them instantly as a perfect match.

“[She had a] massive girth on her, a beautiful head and outlook, and every time she stopped in front of us she would pull up balanced,” MacGillivray recalled. “She had a beautiful walk, a long stride.”

They were all the attributes Clarken needed in a horse. Then it became a matter of price.

The trainers had nowhere near the budget of the big stables and owners that now dominate the fields of Australia’s best races, particularly the Melbourne Cup.

They see plenty of horses they love the look of, but know they are only dreaming as Yulong Investments, Godolphin or the big syndicates outbid them.

But $35,000 for this filly was the right price.

So she was in the back of their float heading out to their farm near Murray Bridge after her breeders David and Rhiannon Wishaw (who bred All Star Mile winner Mystic Journey) accepted that was all they could get for the horse. But they knew she had talent.

David told the trainers she would win them an Oaks. She didn’t do that, only beginning to mature as she headed towards becoming a five-year-old, finishing eighth in the 2000-metre Matriarch Stakes on Champions Stakes day in 2022 on her first trip to Flemington.

Oopy MacGillivray (left) with Melbourne Cup hope The MapCredit: Getty Images

“We took her over [to Victoria] the first time and she was a neurotic, antsy bloody thing. [We’ve been] back and forth over the border a few times now, and she has got better at how she conducts herself. She has become tradesman-like in the way she does it now,” Clarken said.

By then the trainers had collected an eclectic bunch of owners, some new to the game, others familiar through an association with the trainers in another decent horse Harleymoven.

The farmers, graziers, publicans, the breeder and builders are all typified by the knockabout nature of Keith farmer, footy club president and, if you want to hear a good story, crocodile-bite survivor, Ian “Donk” Johnson, who was still in the mounting yard with a beer and his family after many of the bigger owners had disappeared following Saturday evening’s barrier draw.

“We have half-booked out the Hill Stand. About 500 of our friends are coming over,” Johnson said. “You can dare to dream.”

On Tuesday, she will become Clarken and MacGillivray’s first Cup runner. The pair only train about 10 horses in Murray Bridge.

“It is once in a lifetime. To get her out of the sale and take her right through to this point is a huge thrill, a massive thrill,” Clarken said.

Most of The Map’s most serious opponents are from big stables. Chris Waller has five runners, Ciaron Maher four and legendary Irish trainer Willie Mullins has two. These days, the smaller trainers only have a couple of runners between them in the Cup.

Trainers David Eustace (left), Ciaron Maher and jockey Mark Zahra won the 2022 Melbourne Cup with Gold Trip.Credit: Getty Images

But Maher, down to earth as they come, remains a strong believer that anyone can win the race.

“It’s a handicap and good horses can come from anywhere,” Maher said. “You could have eight in the race and still not get the winner. It’s one of those races.”

Maher’s stable has a little more than 500 named horses racing, while Waller has about 460. Together, the pair have shared the Caulfield Cup, the Cox Plate, the Coolmore Stakes and The Everest this spring. In November 2023 Maher’s website said there were 900 horses registered to his stable.

Both trainers are outstanding racing people, but comparing their stables to The Map’s trainers is like comparing Sony and Warner Music to a small independent record label.

Clarken, who trained Blue Diamond winner Miracles of Life in 2012, and MacGillivray don’t spend any energy worrying about that. They respect other horse trainers and enjoy the training business they have built.

“One thing we have both realised over the years is that you can’t worry about your opposition,” MacGillivray said.

“What we worry about is getting our horse there in the best condition we can and if they are good enough ...

“We try to place our horses where they are good enough because, between you and me, it is much more fun going to the races and winning.”

The Map’s past two Flemington visits – on Cup day last year and in the Andrew Ramsden Stakes in May – have ended in wins, with Macgillivray noticing the change as the dream moved closer to reality.

“[She] drinks, eats and puts herself to bed, sleeps for two days and then bounces right back,” MacGillivray said. “She is bigger and stronger and furnished into the mature article right now.”

Winning the Andrew Ramsden Stakes over 2800 metres at Flemington automatically qualified The Map for the Melbourne Cup, although the victory was celebrated amid sadness for MacGillivray as her father Charles died in the week of the race.

Charles and his wife Cass had raised McGillivray on a property just out of Dunkeld, surrounded by cattle and horses.

“I was blessed with scruffy little wild ponies,” MacGillivray said. “We had our place and the neighbour’s place, and we could just ride anywhere, and we did.”

That affinity with horses saw her connect with Clarken after her husband South Australian entrepreneur Duncan Macgillivray died suddenly on a family holiday in 2014.

The pair now live on the property Dan’s father bought near Murray Bridge racecourse 25 years ago. They have turned the bare land into their piece of paradise.

“[The] way we have it now it’s perfect for us. It’s just nice to be able to walk outside, do your own thing, no pressure,” Clarken said.

MacGillivray interrupts, saying the only pressure they have is self-imposed.

“At the beginning of The Map’s life I did all her riding, whether it was here in the deep sand or right from day dot when I was breaking her in,” MacGillivray said.

“Now I do all of her slow work when we are breaking her in. We don’t ride her so much here now because she is a bit prickly if a Kangaroo hops out or something. She can get out from under you quite quickly.

“She goes to the track two to three times a week, goes to the treadmill, does lots of swimming and that’s her week.”

Dan Clarken and Oopy McGillivray with their Melbourne Cup runner, The Map. Credit: Justin McManus

Wishaw credits their approach for The Map’s development into a Melbourne Cup horse, saying that, although the sale price wasn’t what they hoped for, the pairing of horse and trainer gave them great joy.

He and his wife Rhiannon have followed her every step, and breeder-owner Richard Sadek, who retained a share in the horse, has invited them to share the moment at Flemington.

“The horse is doing what she is bred to do and loving doing what she is bred to do, found owners and trainers who love her. What a fairytale,” Wishaw said.

”It is lovely to see them go on and do what you dreamed that they could do, and the joy they bring people ... this is what makes the Australian industry romantic and this is what keeps small breeders in the game, and this is what brings small-time owners to the game.”

The Map shows there is still romance in the Cup. Among the overseas-bred stayers bought by big owners, this cheeky talent will need to run the race of her life, but anything is possible.

“We can all say other races are as big or better, but it’s the race,” Maher said.

Clarken shows his softer side when he reflects on the journey he and MacGillivray have travelled with The Map.

“I always think, as a trainer to be able to get a good stayer is where it really counts … this is something we have shaped for several years now to get to this point, and we have done it together, so it is pretty special,” Clarken said.

The last Tasmanian galloper to win the Melbourne Cup was Piping Lane in 1972, at a time when international runners stayed at home.

The Map just needs to jump from barrier 21 with Rachel King aboard and save herself for that big, uninterrupted run which has become her trademark.

“She’s not a stop start horse, she’s a momentum horse,” Johnson said. “The whole state would be going off.”

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