Mark Zahra’s Gold Trip to redemption in Melbourne Cup
A year ago, jockey Mark Zahra watched the Melbourne Cup on television after being suspended for a Covid breach. Fast forward to 2022. Zahra rode home Gold Trip in Australia’s biggest race.
It was a victory of sweet redemption. A year ago, jockey Mark Zahra watched the Melbourne Cup on television after being suspended for a Covid breach and trainer Ciaron Maher was still smarting from his horse’s “embarrassing’’ scratching from a big race.
Fast forward to 2022. Zahra rode home Gold Trip in the Melbourne Cup on Tuesday in a victory that wiped out the memories of last year’s spring carnival for him, the horse and Maher.
It was the first victory for all of them in Australia’s biggest race.
And Gold Trip became the first horse since Bitalli in 1923 to take the Cup having won only one other race in its career.
It is little wonder then that Zahra said immediately after the win: “I feel like crying. It’s unbelievable, What a day.”
Last year, Zahra was in Byron Bay crying into his beer and being admonished by his wife for feeling sorry for himself after he had been caught with other jockeys at a party on the Mornington Peninsula when Victoria was still in a Covid lockdown.
To add insult to injury, Zahra had been booked to ride Verry Elleegant, the horse that went on to win the 2021 Melbourne Cup. “I remember getting a dressing down from the wife … and I’d probably had too much to drink,” the winning jockey said. “I said ‘cut me some slack, Verry Elleegant just won the Melbourne Cup’. Anyway, it has come a full year and now I can hold the trophy.”
Last spring, Maher was seething that Gold Trip was scratched from the 2021 Cox Plate, a situation he described as a “debacle”.
At the time, Maher had been adamant Gold Trip was fit.
This year, the horse ran in the Caulfield Cup, then the Cox Plate and then won the Melbourne Cup, despite carrying the top weight of 57.5kg in the race.
It set off scenes of jubilation in the mounting yard where Gold Trip’s dozens of owners celebrated with the horse, jockey and trainer, as Melbourne’s dismal weather held off long enough to hold the race before the rain pelted down.
“After the debacle we went through last year with the scratching of the horse in a big race, which was pretty embarrassing, it was great that the owners are vindicated,” Maher said. “The horse is fine and has run three of its biggest races, and won on the last day. The weather has been very kind to him, and our team have done a very good job with him.”
Emissary finished second and High Emocean came third.
Favourite Deauville Legend finished strongly, but could only manage fourth. They were a set of results that the bookmakers were more than happy with, including one that just happened to be one of Gold Trip’s owners.
Zahra rode Gold Trip into the lead about 300m from the winning post, and fought off thoughts of the Caulfield Cup three weekends ago when the horse had been in a similar position, only to be run down near the line to finish second.
“He was strong all the way to the line,” Zahra said. “The first thing I did was wave to the crowd … then yelled and screamed. Then when things settled down, I got a bit emotional and nearly was going to cry.
“You just think, you’ve won a Melbourne Cup and it will be forever in history.”
Zahra and Maher, who trained Gold Trip with David Eustace, had once been apprentice jockeys together. One, Zahra, a flats jockey, the other a jumps jockey.
Maher would go on to concentrate on training, and although he has won plenty of big races, this was his first Cup.
“We were in a little hut at the end of the (Flemington) straight (as apprentices) and you always knew when Ciaron would have had a party because you couldn’t see the ground … there were just (beer) cans there,” Zahra joked after their win. “I think back to then and where we are both now, it’s just a dream come true.”
He also noted it was a long way from the pair’s even younger days. Zahra’s mother used to give him the day off school to watch the Cup. Maher remembered the traditional Cup sweep at his primary school.
Maher and Eustace had five runners in the big race on Tuesday. One, Interpretation, had failed to finish but was later cleared by vets, who also cleared three other horses which had ended up well back from the rest of the field.
Their big triumph, their 16th Group 1 win, means they are closing in on $100m prizemoney only five years into their training partnership.
In the mounting yard, Doug McLennan from Surfcoast Racing admitted to being emotional as he watched Gold Trip win. One of the horse’s owners, he said he was remembering a late grandchild who had attended racing with him. McLennan had his first runner in 1978, a second place in 2016 after a third in 2012. Gold Trip was his first win. “He’d only won one race. It’s a quality horse, but the weight was the concern. How come a horse that had won one race had the top weight race today?”
Then there was bookmaker Todd Buckingham, the chief executive of ASX-listed BetMakers, the technology provider for fast-growing bookie Betr.
“I don’t care about the book. I don’t care what customer lost today – it’s just the best feeling,” Buckingham said as he celebrated Gold Trip – a horse he and his sister had bought into after their mother had passed away.
They had decided to try to find a Cup winner, and invested in Gold Trip on the advice of Buckingham’s friend Jamie Lovett, of syndicator Australian Bloodstock.
“That’s the beauty of racing in Australia is you’re able to bring guys in and they bring others in. It is infectious,” Lovett said.
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