Why the funniest horse in the Melbourne Cup could win it

Soulcombe can win the Melbourne Cup. If he remembers to get out of the gates.

Richmond footballers and Soulcombe part owners Jayden Short, Tom Lynch and Jack Riewoldt. Picture: Getty Images.

It won’t be a complicated discussion between Chris Waller and Soulcombe before the Melbourne Cup. Look old mate, Waller will say. It’s not rocket science. You missed the start of the Caulfield Cup by six lengths. You lost by 5½ lengths. Shall I do the maths? You can jag a win at Flemington if you get out of the gates before it’s too late.

You’d hope the English five-year-old gelding nods at Waller’s sage advice. He’s a mighty racehorse with an almost comical weakness. The daft bugger takes longer to get off the mark than Geoffrey Boycott ever did. The problem is that he doesn’t start with everyone else. Like he can’t find his car keys. Like he’s in the throes of an existential crisis. Why are we racing? Why compete? Why can’t we all just get along? “He’s a funny horse,” Waller says.

When Soulcombe finally ­ambled into action in the Caulfield Cup, so slowly he fell out of the TV picture at one stage, threatening to fall asleep right there on the spot, drifting 25 lengths in arrears after his diabolical departure, he finished better than a great novel. Went like the clappers to finish seventh. Jockey Craig Williams veered through heavy traffic as if he was on a moped. Could’ve won but as Williams says, “Unfortunately, that’s the worst he’s ever left the gates. He was really slow out”.

Soulcombe’s benign beginnings have the humour of a British sitcom to anyone who isn’t his jockey, trainer, faithful punter or part-owner, which includes Richmond’s AFL champion Jack Riewoldt. You’d give the son of Frankel a slow handclap if you weren’t slapping your thigh. Rie­woldt’s nickname was Jumping Jack in deference to a quality he may wish to pass on to his great delayer of a stayer. Or perhaps he has sympathy. He missed a string of early scoring chances in the 2017 AFL grand final, starting as tardily as a temperamental thoroughbred, before the Tigers kicked home to win by 48 points.

The Caulfield Cup was 2400m. Soulcombe’s jittery jump but crackerjack conclusion suggested he just needed another 800m. Which is what he’ll get on Tuesday. Time won’t stand still at the start, but he probably will. The full 3200m may be what he needs to make amends when he’s ridden by Brazilian jockey Joao Moreira, the “Magic Man”.

Soulcombe has been in Australia for a year. He found himself a backpacker joint at Bondi Beach before Waller put a decent roof over his head. The super trainer concedes Soulcombe is quirky. He says most of the quirks have been ironed out, all bar the minor ­inconvenience of refusing to move a muscle until he’s good and ready.

“He got rid of all the other quirks,” he told racing.com. “It’s the reason he had the blinkers on. to help him through. But he doesn’t work in them any more. He goes in front in his work now and he never used to go in front. He didn’t like swimming and now he likes swimming. He’s just a funny horse.”

Maybe dear Soulcombe just gets stage fright. “Last start was the worst he’s jumped,” Waller says. “We’ll have a word with the barrier staff to see what they suggest and we’ll do some barrier work this week but we’re keen not to overdo things. I’d say he’ll miss it a length (at the Melbourne Cup). A horse like him, we know he’s good enough to win a Cup. We just have to make sure he’s ­behaving well enough to win a Cup. We can’t afford to miss the start like we did in the Caulfield Cup.”

Riewoldt was at Caulfield when Soulcombe only missed the start by about an hour-and-a-half but still won the Group 2 Heatherlie Stakes. Soulcombe was at the delicious odds of 20-1 but Rie­woldt, who has a stake in the horse with fellow Tigers Tom Lynch, Liam Baker, Nathan Broad, Jack Graham and Jayden Short, did not have a cent on him. The epitome of equine quirkiness is paying $11 for the Cup.

Riewoldt’s funny, too. Funny how? He pulled off his own first after Soulcombe’s win, becoming arguably the first co-owner to pose for photographs in the mounting yard while decked out in his finest shorts and T-shirt.

“I was slightly embarrassed,” he told SEN radio. “I did ask them if they would like me to not go in there. I actually watched the race in general admission. None of us backed it. That’s the flat thing. If you listened to Chris Waller’s voicemail the night before, which nearly put me to sleep, I thought we were a no-show. Sure enough he’s been led through by one of the great rides from Blake Shinn and got the chocolates.”

All horsing around aside, Soulcombe, this hero to the forgetful, champion of the unreliable, poster boy for the procrastinators, is a ­serious contender and Waller loves that athletes of the calibre of Riewoldt are involved. They provide character. Add colour. Plus shorts and T-shirts.

Waller reckons he knows why they’re here. Race day at Flemington provides the same adrenaline, expectation and hope as game day at the MCG.

“You might get sporting stars who have had that grand final-winning feeling, World Cup-­winning feeling or flag-winning feeling, and they get that same feeling, once they’ve retired, from horse racing, “Waller says. “The industry is open to anyone. That sense of winning, whether it’s a big race or a small one, is the same. Who wouldn’t want to be ­involved?”