The Melbourne Cup everyone needed and no one saw coming

If the past two years have taught us anything, it’s that nothing in life is certain. Not in a pandemic. Not in a Melbourne Cup.

So it seemed only fitting that this year’s Cup was won not by the horse on everyone’s lips, but a horse most had forgotten until she bolted down the Flemington straight like a teenager released from lockdown.

Melbourne Cup winning jockey James McDonald: “It means everything.”Credit: Reg Ryan

She’s Verry Elleegant and on a verry special Cup Day, she stole the show.

Such was the twist in the tale of this race that Brae Sokolski, one of the owners of the winning horse, hurdled the mounting yard fence in wild celebration still sporting a tie in the colours of his other horse, the one we all thought was a sure thing, Incentivise.

As Sokolski said, he was mesmerised watching the super-horse from Toowoomba take control of the great race when he saw the colours of Verry Elleegant flash down the outside and keep on going.

“It is a dream come true having a runner, let alone the winner, let alone the quinella,” the 48-year-old Melburnian said. “I am just the luckiest human being on the planet at the moment. What a privilege, honestly.”

Sokolski vowed to party long and yard into the night, and by the time the sun set on Flemington, most of Melbourne and much of the nation had already given it a good nudge.

While the sparsely populated Flemington course had the feel of a garden party, with racegoers seated beneath umbrellas at safely distanced tables, the Cup and a perfect spring day drew people out of COVID-19 hibernation all over town.

Along the banks of the Yarra, on the green lawns of the Botanical Gardens, on St Kilda beach and around backyard barbecues, we rediscovered the simple pleasure of company so desperately missed, for so desperately long.

As if sensing the mood, even the virus took the day off, with Victoria recording its smallest number of new daily cases for a month. “Melburnians have earned this majestic and glorious Melbourne Cup Day,” Victorian Racing Minister Martin Pakula enthused.

Brae Sokolski apologised for breaching COVID-19 protocols when he jumped into the mounting yard after his six-year-old mare and emerging champion Incentivise ran the quinella in the Melbourne Cup.Credit: The Age

If the bookies were any guide, this Cup was as good as won before the race began. Incentivise, a five-year-old gelding that had won nine straight, including the Caulfield Cup, was the horse everyone wanted in the backyard sweep and the racing story that no one could get enough of.

Instead, the Cup was won by a horse that as recently as Saturday morning wasn’t even a certain starter.

At that stage, trainer Chris Waller was still deciding whether his prized mare had recovered well enough from her Cox Plate to endure two miles around Flemington under a hot Melbourne sun and jockey James McDonald was still waiting to hear whether he had a ride in the Cup.

“This is a tough race that really takes a toll on these horses,” said Johanna Taylor, Waller’s assistant trainer in Melbourne.

Party time at the Melbourne Cup.Credit: Getty Images

“If a horse isn’t absolutely 100 per cent going into a race like this, we don’t want to risk their health putting them under that sort of strain. If she showed us at any stage that maybe this is not the year, then Chris would have done the right thing by the horse.”

This is the message the racing industry needs to send beyond its insular confines. The only thing more important than getting people back to the Cup was making sure every horse survived the race.

This time last year, the death of Anthony Van Dyck, the sixth horse to die in seven Cups, plunged the race into crisis. Waller was one of the trainers called in by Racing Victoria to help figure out what needed to be done.

The result was a strict new vetting regime that has dramatically reduced the number of international horses in the Cup. This year, only two international raiders made the trip.

Waller understood that the racing industry, which already operates with a fragile social licence, needed a change of approach and, in some instances, a change of attitude. “If I had a choice between winning a Melbourne Cup and a horse coming home safe, I would be saying bring the horse home safe,” he said earlier this year.

Waller lives and trains in Sydney and decided not to come to Flemington because of Racing NSW’s strict quarantine rules. Instead, he watched the race with his family at home. Verry Elleegant has now won a Caulfield Cup and a Melbourne Cup among 10 group 1 races. “It’s probably as good as it gets,” Waller said.

It was only after the mare completed his morning track work on Saturday and fresh blood tests raised no issues with her vets that the horse was cleared to run. This was the moment that McDonald, a New Zealander considered the best jockey in Australia, knew he would be riding in the Cup.

And what a ride it was. “I got the best run in the race,” he said. “She was so relaxed. She never touched the bridle until I blew her a kiss at the 600.”

Verry Elleegant and James McDonald after they won the Cup.Credit: Getty

And what did it mean to him?

“It means everything.”

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