Melbourne Cup 2020: COVID Cup still an Aussie experience

A bloke who learned to ride dodging kangaroos and emus won the Cup. And the winning horse’s owners celebrated at the pub.

Twilight Payment, right, with Jye McNeil on board, holds off Tiger Moth, centre, and Prince of Arran to win the 160th Melbourne Cup on Tuesday. Picture: Getty Images

COVID couldn’t quite stop the Melbourne Cup, and even in the strangest of years the race turned out to be a quintessentially ­Australian experience.

Winning jockey Jye McNeil grew up learning to ride horses along bush tracks, dodging kangaroos and emus in the bush near the Victorian border. The winning owners partied well into the evening at the pub, where the beer flowed and champagne sprayed in celebration of McNeil steering home Twilight Payment at Flemington on Tuesday.

All that was missing was a crowd, which was found instead at Gerry Ryan’s Prince of Wales Hotel in St Kilda toasting McNeil’s big victory in what was the 25-year-old’s first Cup ride.

He and wife Jessica Payne, a fellow jockey, have a young baby and on Tuesday morning they started the day with bacon and eggs. “The breakfast of champions,” she said.

McNeil rode the race of his life at an empty and quiet Flemington racecourse, leading from start to finish to win ahead of Tiger Moth and Prince of Arran. “It’s a miracle,” McNeil said. “It’s been a lifelong dream to get to this moment and [it] is very surreal.”

It was yet another big win for Lloyd Williams, a remarkable seventh for the Melbourne Cup-­obsessed businessman who decided a few months ago that McNeil was the best young jockey in the country and would be his Cup rider.

As son Nick said: “Yet again as what happens to me in racing and life, dad got proved right. He’s an absolute genius.”

Gerry Ryan, left, Nick Williams, second from left, and Michael Gudinski, centre, celebrate in St Kilda. Picture: Aaron Francis

The 80-year-old Williams makes a habit of never going to the track, choosing instead to watch at home in what he calls “the Williams Grandstand” with the sound turned down. In that way, the Cup was very 2020 in being won by someone who would have been watching from home anyway.

Son Nick and Twilight Payment’s other owners made up for his absence, as caravan king Gerry Ryan, music industry impresario Michael Gudinski and their mates gathered at Ryan’s Prince of Wales pub to watch and then ­celebrate instead. Nick Williams said his father was quietly watching at home on the Mornington Peninsula. “He’s very excited and we’re absolutely thrilled to have won the race,” he said.

Acknowledging that this year’s Melbourne Cup was a bit odd without spectators, Nick Williams said he was grateful he was ­allowed to celebrate at a pub.

“It’s certainly a lot better than if the race was won three weeks ago when we were all sitting in our living rooms in lockdown,” he said.

Empty stands as the Melbourne Cup field races at Flemington racecourse. Picture: Aaron Francis

At the party, blue and white balloons floated above a swimming pool while roses adorned bar tables and a few loungers were scattered in front of a wide-screen television. On the deck overlooking the chaotic Fitzroy Street, Ryan toasted Mushroom Records founder and co-owner Gudinski — and their home town.

“Living a dream, it’s so good to see Melbourne come back,” Gudinski said. “This is our city.”

Ryan added: “We’re Melbourne through and through, and it’s wonderful that the Cup is going to stay here.”

Victoria Racing Club chairman Amanda Elliott was full of praise for Williams, correctly noting that the rich lister spent “a lot of money trying to win this race”.

Elliott also described the day as “bittersweet” just after she hosted a “virtual” trophy presentation. She was referring to an empty, ­almost haunted, racecourse.

But she may as well have been pointing out the loss of Anthony van Dyck, the top weight in the field and a horse with a fantastic track record. It had to be euthanised after sustaining a fractured fetlock mid-race. In that way, it was almost business as usual. It has become too frequent an occurrence to lose a competing horse in Australia’s biggest race of the year.

But Tuesday was different. As Melburnians flocked to parks and pubs on a glorious sunny day, Flemington racecourse was in lockdown. There were no spectators at the cavernous 100,000 capacity area, and the first people to cheer Twilight Payment home were a smattering of groundskeepers near the winning post.

There was no thunderous roar from a big crowd along the straight, only the whirring of a helicopter overhead on a day that had the all the feel of a made for television only event.

McNeil didn’t seem perturbed.

“I’m not worried about the [empty] grandstand at all,” he said as he brought Twilight Payment back into the mounting yard after his big win.