The Big Dance: Country comes to town to race for $2 million
The Big Dance, over 1600m and worth $2m, is the latest big-bucks race devised by Racing NSW chief executive Peter V’landys to put Sydney and Melbourne on equal hoofing during the Spring Carnival.
One of the most inspiring stories in Australian horse racing is that the winner of the inaugural Melbourne Cup in 1861, a five-year-old stallion named Archer, walked 850km from his stable in Nowra on the NSW south coast to Flemington racecourse in Melbourne.
It’s an odyssey of stamina that might explain the one record Archer, inducted into the Australian Racing Hall of Fame in 2017, would rather live down: the slowest winning time in the history of the two-mile race.
Yet like a lot of racing stories, it’s a furphy. Archer, who returned in 1862 to win a second Melbourne Cup, travelled from NSW to Victoria by steamship. He may have had to do a bit of walking in transit, but so did everybody back then.
Even so, Archer’s mythical country-to-city journey comes to mind on the eve of tomorrow’s time-honoured Melbourne Cup and its new Sydney rival The Big Dance, which will have its own inauguration at Sydney’s Royal Randwick racecourse.
The Big Dance, over 1600m and worth $2m, is the latest big-bucks race devised by Racing NSW chief executive Peter V’landys to put Sydney and Melbourne on equal hoofing during the Spring Carnival.
Its format also tries to bring city and country closer together. To gain a spot in the Big Dance, a horse must run first or second in 25 selected country cups run over the previous 12 months.
The opening qualifying race was the Goulburn Cup in October 2021, and the closing one was the Coonamble Cup almost a year later. In between there were cups at Wagga, Armidale, Dubbo, Scone, Bathurst, Tamworth and other towns throughout NSW, including the famous Snake Gully Cup at Gundagai. Before anyone asks, Bowral’s Bong Bong Cup was not included.
When the country cups were done and dusted there remained one more chance, a “wild card” race at Randwick on October 15. This took the number of eligible races to 26 and the number of potential runners to 52.
Racing NSW announced the final field of 20, with four emergencies in the event of scratchings, on Friday morning.
The pre-post favourite is the Coffs Harbour Cup winner Hosier, a five-year-old gelding in the hands of Newcastle trainer Kris Lees, who has three other horses in the field of 24.
Next on the bookies’ board are Surf Dancer (South Grafton Cup), trained by Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott at Randwick, and Bandersnatch (Tamworth Cup), trained by father and sons team John, Michael and Wayne Hawkes at Rosehill.
That these horses, trained not in the country but in Sydney and Newcastle, head the betting markets goes to something about the Big Dance that has been congratulated and criticised.
It’s no coincidence that the race is run on the same day as the Melbourne Cup. The Everest, worth $15m, is run on the same day as the Caulfield Cup. The $10m Golden Eagle was run at the weekend, as was the Victoria Derby at Flemington.
When he unveiled the Big Dance, V’landys emphasised that it was designed to complement the 3200m race that still stops the nation.
“We’re not taking any gloss off the Melbourne Cup,’’ he said. Melbourne racing authorities responded by accusing him of “ambush marketing”.
Whether the Big Dance, to be run 40 minutes earlier, diminishes interest in the Cup is something only crowd figures and betting turnover will tell.
As someone who has followed the horses for more than 40 years, I think it is unlikely. The Cup is still the Cup. There’s also little chance the Dance “steals” Cup horses, as it is run over half the distance.
Indeed the main congratulations/criticism has occurred closer to home. Making the country cups the focus of the race has raised the profile of racing from Albury to Wellington. It has lifted crowds and allowed some clubs to increase the prize money on their cups.
It has also brought big-name city trainers and their horses to rural racetracks, which is exciting for the crowds but has caused mutterings about how it’s difficult for local trainers to qualify a horse when the “Big Ws” – Sydney trainers Chris Waller and Gai Waterhouse – are in town.
This city-country rivalry is something V’landys, wearing his other hat as chairman of the Australian Rugby League Commission, will know well. This writer still remembers, as a boy, being thrilled when the country NSW team, full of pig shooters like Noel “Crusher” Cleal, rolled into Sydney to take on the silver-spooned city slickers.
We've collected Country Cup winners from around NSW over the last 12 months and 20 of them will race for $2 million on the BIG stage at Royal Randwick on Tuesday. It's the inaugural Big Dance. Good luck to connections of all runners! pic.twitter.com/3WURlh2itb
— Racing NSW (@racing_nsw) October 30, 2022
Grafton trainer Lisa Sheppard was philosophical when asked about the city invaders ahead of the South Grafton Cup, which she tried to win with her galloper Racketeering.
“The talk is that country cups should be for country horses but at the end of the day it is what it is and that’s how the cookie crumbles,’’ she told Racenet.com.
The spoils that day went to the aforementioned Surf Dancer, who is perhaps the best named horse in the Big Dance. A bold front runner, he leads his rivals on a merry dance. Sheppard’s horse was unplaced.
The Big Dance winner will receive $1.05m, second $400,000 and third $200,000. The race also puts aside $30,000 for the Equine Welfare Fund and $20,000 for the Jockeys Welfare Fund.
The final field does suggest the $2m purse may not have far to travel. Of the 24 runners, most are trained in the city or large regional towns such as Newcastle. Waller has three entrants and Waterhouse two.
The leading country hope, according to the bookmakers, is Casino Kid, trained at Muswellbrook by Jan Bowen. He made the field by winning the Dubbo Cup.
The Big Dance is followed by a consolation race called the Little Dance. It does have a higher country representation, though the favourite, Steely, is trained at Rosehill.
The odds suggest any celebratory dancing is more likely to be done in a nightclub than a barn, but then this is racing, so anything might happen. Archer, a horse from the bush, did almost walk to Flemington to take on the equine toffs in the Melbourne Cup after all.
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