Williams now a grand slam great
After 16 years of trying Craig Williams is finally a Melbourne Cup winner ... and a grand slam great.
Craig Williams’s father, Allan, was standing next to the flower beds in the Flemington mounting yard. Blue-rimmed spectacles, dapper suit. His son had just won the Melbourne Cup. He spoke with a humble wonder about Williams’s lifelong resilience and the riding masterclass that got Vow And Declare over the line. He kept his emotions in check — until he thought no one was looking.
As Williams was making his way through the throng at Flemington, thumping his chest and gesticulating to the skies — finally, a win! — someone said to his youngest daughter, Summer: “Your dad just won the Melbourne Cup!” That’s when Allan, a former jockey who retired early because of injury, lost it. While the cameras were pointed elsewhere, his lips trembled, he half-laughed, he shook his head while looking at his youngest granddaughter. He shed a tear right there next to the flower bed. “Stoked for him,” he said.
The seven-year-old Summer shrugged her shoulders like none of it was any big deal. Williams, still shaking with adrenaline, came over and hugged his four children. He clenched his fists in the glory of an ambition realised after 16 years. He put his head down to the level of his kids — Viktor, Olena, Oliver and Summer — and told them all, “We’re number one.”
What a triumph. The Cup always meant the world to Williams.
“We did it with an Australian horse,” he said after surviving a brutal 3200m. He thanked everyone: his parents, children, wife, his horse, his riding coach. He spared a thought for fallen comrades.
“Never forget those jockeys that are injured or we’ve lost,” he said. “It’s a tough sport. And most importantly, don’t forget the stars of the show. The thoroughbreds. I couldn’t do it without Vow And Declare. He was just awesome. I teared up and welled up. He didn’t. He wanted to go again.”
Williams walked the track before race one. It was about 10am and he was alone. The early races came and went. What a scene ensued. The leggy and the legless. The roses and manure. High heels and low budgets. Low heels and high budgets. Form guides and fascinators. The paintings of Phar Lap in the members stand were breathtaking. Beneath the rose-lined arch at the entrance to Flemington, where every Cup winner had a Hollywood Walk of Fame-style mention on the footpath, a model posed for a photograph. The cameraman told her, “Lots of laughing and that!”
Geelong captain Joel Selwood was not wearing socks. Shirt off his back by the end of the day? They reckon 15 million bets were laid. Anthony Callea sipped herbal tea outside the Carbine Room. In a red suit, he looked like Prince. He sang the national anthem. A string orchestra played a black tie version of Land Down Under before getting out of the mounting yard so the horses could move in. Williams stroked Vow And Declare’s mane and told him “Shhh, shhh”.
Glasses were half-full or empty by now. The tension before the start was incredible. Owners and trainers stood still. Now or never. Risk and reward. Then an almighty roar. Little princesses and old farts moved in for a closer look. Bart Cummings’ statue put its binoculars to its eyes. Racing. Williams pipped them at the post.
“Very proud of him,” Allan Williams said before Craig put his 16-year wait, plus three minutes and 24 seconds, into words.
“I’ve got to thank everyone around me that’s touched my life and given me confidence,” he said. “I’m so grateful. I’m going to enjoy this.” Vow And Declare bobbed his head as if he wanted someone to spray champagne on him. Williams patted him and laughed, “Look at him! He knows he won.”
Williams was booked to ride the 2011 Cup-winning Dunaden before he was sidelined by a heartbreaking suspension. Back then, he told his wife he was going to win the Melbourne Cup. Eight years later, Williams joins Neville Sellwood, Roy Higgins, Pat Hyland, Mick Dittman, Jim Cassidy, Damien Oliver and Chris Munce as the only jockeys to win the “grand slam” of Australian racing — the Golden Slipper, Caulfield Cup, Cox Plate and Melbourne Cup.
“When Danny O’Brien confirmed me for Vow And Declare, I went to my wife and said again, ‘Honey, we’re going to win the Melbourne Cup!’ It’s just very special. When I meet new friends, teachers, other parents, and tell them I’m a jockey, they say, ‘Have you won the Melbourne Cup?’ They look very disappointed, like you’re not an accomplished rider.”
Williams has displayed a good-natured habit of dismissing the Cup as “just another bloody handicap race” when he fell short. He admitted he’d call it the greatest on earth if he ever won it. So he did.
“Vow And Declare pricked his ears going up the straight the first time,” he said. “He was so happy and rolling along. I was happy to take the lead. It wouldn’t have defined me if I never won it but I’m very competitive and I’m very proud to have won.”
Allan Williams was still standing near the flower bed, not talking too much, a bit shocked by it all.
“He’s an absolute credit to himself,” he said. “It was a real fight to the line, and a really good ride from a bad draw. I’m stoked for him. He probably wouldn’t get a berth as a young jockey today.
“There’s a different system today and he was just a fat little kid when he started. He’s worked hard his whole life for this.”
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