‘The Australian horse has done it’: Inside the Flemington bubble as an underdog wins the Cup

Whether the Melbourne Cup is the race that stops the nation any more, it is still the race that stops Melbourne, the nation’s sporting capital. That makes Flemington on Cup Day not so much a microcosm as a bubble. But it’s a happy bubble, a festive bubble, an ebullient bubble.

On Tuesday, it was also a roomy bubble. Unlike previous years, wherever you wanted to go on the course, an inviting gap generally opened up the way it did for Knight’s Choice in the big race. Whether that was because of falling interest or a cap is moot. This was a day for the converted and their guests.

Melbourne Cup winner Knight’s Choice soaks up the adulation at Flemington.Credit: Joe Armao

The charm this day was an archetypal, old-fashioned sort of winner. Knight’s Choice was a 100-1 outsider who ran fifth in the Bendigo Cup last week. Jockey Robbie Dolan is an Irishman who was once a contestant on The Voice and who had not previously ridden in the race. Banjo Paterson would have made a rhyme out of all that.

Co-trainer Sheila Laxon achieved lasting fame in 2001 when she became the first woman to saddle up a Melbourne Cup winner, Ethereal (with the Caulfield Cup to boot). Laxon then was something of a national heroine, and notionally is again now, nearly a quarter of a century later.

But just as the place of the Melbourne Cup in Australia’s sporting affections is receding, so is our traditional fondness for the underdog diminishing. It’s stars that take our gaze now, and there were few in this race. It has to be reported that when Knight’s Choice hit the line, the voice of the crowd was more “oh” than “wow”. In the mounting yard, too, the reception was more muted than usual.

Not that this bothered the horse’s connections, and nor should it. As they fell into one another’s arms in celebration, their exclamations were wondrous. It wasn’t so much, “We did it” as, “Did we really?”

Jockey Robbie Dolan with trainers Sheila Laxon and John Symons celebrate the win.Credit: Getty Images

You can choose your own theory about the decline of the Melbourne Cup in the nation’s imagination, if that’s what it is. The change in the nation’s demographics, maybe? Competition interstate, and the money following it? Animal cruelty protests hitting home? The anti-gambling push? The lack of interest from this generation of youth (Laxon has previously dwelled on this)?

Or simply history taking its course.

In a big country, the view is different from wherever you behold it – see how Canberra looks from 1000 kilometres in the other direction. There can be no doubt that, seen from afar, the conceit of the Melbourne Cup as some sort of national day is receding. It’s not even a holiday outside Victoria.

Adopted Queenslander Laxon at least was careful to enfold the whole country in her euphoria. “I love it being done for the Australians,” she said. “The Australian horse has done it, and Robbie’s Australian now as well. So I’m thrilled to win the Cup. It’s the people’s Cup and that’s what it’s all about.”

Racing is only ever a mass-appeal sport at this time of year anyway. Else times, it’s an insiders’ pursuit. Rich, often famous, insiders, yes, who have their own fascination in our culture, but insiders nonetheless.

Laxon is as down-to-earth as racing folk come, but she does get to do her work out of Macedon Lodge, Lloyd Williams’ lavish former spread. Co-trainer John Symons noted that Knight’s Choice had cost only $85,000 at the Magic Millions. He’s right that in racing circles, that is small change. But it’s small change to a very small selection of people.

For the rest, the horses are their excuse to be there on the day and incidental to it. It’s a day for ostentatious displays of wealth, even by those who don’t have it. Everyone looks like they’re someone, and maybe they feel it, too. The cost of living and the cost of living it up for a day are two different things. Even the animal cruelty demonstrators looked happy and were civil.

As for the race, there’s no doubt a disconnect has grown. There’s a distance between the haves and the have-slightly-lesses. The have-nots do not exist any more; the influx of big money international stables has seen to them.

The internationals have added melody and chic – European accents were audible in the crowd this day – but have put the race at a further remove from its roots. But they do find it damnably hard to win. There were four on Tuesday, all also-rans. As horse people, they love the status of this day, but its outcomes not so much.

There’s a distance between those who are there for the races and those who’ve come for the occasion; I’d say only a quarter were there for the day’s namesake event. After all, it only lasts a bit more than three minutes, and most racegoers only see glimpses anyway. Footy and cricket both are trending towards more compact entertainment formats, but they have a long way to go.

Flemington was its usual glittering, glistening Cup Day. In the parade ring, there was the standard sheen and shimmer on both sides of the rails. The sun shone brightly, but on none more so than a horse and its connections from the Sunshine Coast in the Sunshine State. There was just enough of a breeze to make for a mellow mood.

The aftermath of the Cup.Credit: Justin McManus

And suddenly, it was done. As ever on Cup Day, the winner was lost to sight almost as abruptly as he’d emerged.

After the saddlecloth was removed and once the lather was wiped off his flanks and he was left in the tender care of his strapper, he was as anonymous as the clerk of the course’s horse. Knight’s Choice already was last year’s Melbourne Cup winner, whose name doubtlessly was slipping annoyingly just beyond the tip of the tongues of tens of thousands who were on course for his triumph.

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