SEVEN DAYS IN SPORT: Two starkly different stories made it a Melbourne Cup to remember, says Chief Writer RON REED:
TWO or three weird blokes I know can recite the names of the winning horse, jockey and trainer of every one of the 160 Melbourne Cups. And probably what they all had for breakfast, although that’s probably easy for some of the hoops – nothing.
Leave me out of that contest. I’d struggle to identify the last 10. But a handful do stick in the mind permanently. Of the ones I’ve been privileged enough to be at the track as an eyewitness, they include – in order of impact – Damien Oliver’s emotional tribute to his dead brother on Media Puzzle in 2002, Michelle Payne’s historic triumph on Prince of Penzance in 2015, Makybe Diva completing the unprecedented hat-trick in 2005 and Might and Power’s powerful all-the way demolition job in 1997.
Oh, and Americain in 2010, simply because in a rare departure from the norm I was able to enrich myself in a small way thanks to, well, a connection with the connections which led to a memorable night of celebration.
Like everybody else, I wasn’t at Flemington this week, but I’m prepared to add Twilight Payment to that list of favourites. Why? Because it’s so unusual to see a horse lead virtually from the get-go and challenge the rest to catch me if you can, and a very difficult strategy for even the most experienced jockeys to manage.
When Might And Power did it, it wasn’t all that surprising. He had done the same thing in the Caulfield Cup where he won by more than seven lengths in course record time, ensuring he started favourite at Flemington. There, he and old hand Jimmy Cassidy prevailed by the proverbial bee’s, with Greg Hall believing he had got Doriemus home right on the line and celebrating prematurely.
This time, Jye McNeil had a fair bit more to spare, which was impressive given the experts had declared this to be the best Cup field in recent memory, maybe ever. And in asserting that, they weren’t really focusing on the moderately-known Twilight Payment, an elderly eight-year-old gelding from Ireland who had finished midfield the previous year, described by one of his owners as “a cog below” the more popular contenders, and at long odds of better than 25-1.
In that field, all things considered, this was a winner you couldn’t tip.
Success in the great race is always shared around between the horse, the jockey, the trainer and the owners, some taking more credit than others. For most observers, this one will be remembered as J. McNeil’s defining moment. He is a captivating story. A 25 year old up and comer with a growing reputation, a brand new father, a farm boy from rural Victoria, with a pleasant personality and no obvious tickets on himself. Add the now obvious talent and it is an impressive package.
McNeil’s contribution was the feel-good story of the race – but, regrettably, not the only headline. The death of English Derby winner Anthony Van Dyck was also big news, generating a predictable flood of negative commentary surrounding the unpalatable reality that this was the fifth visiting horse not to survive their participation in the great race in the past eight years.
This is a major public relations problem – although not quite the unmitigated disaster some see it as — for the sport in general, the uncomfortable optics intensified by top rider Kerrin McEvoy copping a large fine and a lengthy suspension for whipping his mount Tiger Moth far too often.
Why all these deaths have happened is something well beyond my extremely limited knowledge of the mechanics of the caper – the Werribee quarantine training facility seems to be the chief suspect – but, to state the very obvious, it is incumbent on those responsible to come up with some sort of solution, just as jumps racing did when it’s unsafe dynamics almost had it banned in Victoria a few years ago.
If not, what? As usual, emotions threaten to obscure reality.
There are plenty of people who would do away with horse racing altogether, and at least one prominent commentator has suggested the Cup is at a crossroads, beyond crisis point, that could lead to it becoming a faint memory if the safety problem is not overcome.
But that’s overstating it – by several lengths. The Spring Carnival, with the Cup as its internationally acclaimed centrepiece, is too much of an economic, sporting, social and cultural institution – too important, in short – to be run out of town by what is, after all, a vocal minority.
That said, the feelgood story everyone will desperately want to hear next year is “correct weight, all runners fit and well.”
AUSTRALIA has been blessed with a lot of fine swimming coaches going all the way back to the Melbourne Olympics in 1956, but none made a greater impact than Don Talbot, who has just died at 87. As head coach at the Sydney Olympics in 2000, he was given well-deserved credit for Australia’s best-ever team performance, five gold, nine silver and four bronze. A supreme strategist, uncompromising disciplinarian and master motivator, his influence extended well beyond his own sport, most notably when he became the inaugural director of the Institute of Sport.
Quite rightly, the tributes got a lot of airplay.
However, less was heard about the death of a second much admired member of the Australian Olympic family, rower Stuart Mackenzie, who departed at 83 more than a fortnight ago at his long-time home in Taunton, England, and was buried this week.
The mists of time have seen to it that his name has slipped into obscurity which is a pity because he was one of the great characters of Australian sport in his day. They should have written a book about him, even though he never won an Olympic gold medal.
Embed from Getty ImagesHe should have done so at the Melbourne Games in 1956 when he led the single sculls until he pulled up 100m from the finish after thinking he had crossed the line, not realising the spacing of the marker buoys had been changed. He was hot favourite again in Rome four years later, when he was clearly the best rower in the world, but became ill and had to withdraw.
He won all sorts of other stuff though, including the prestigious Diamond Sculls at the Henley Royal Regatta six years in a row, which is where he earned his reputation for taking the piss out of the stuffed-shirts who ran the sport – and his opposition.
As gamesmanship, he used to go to practice sessions wearing a bowler hat. One day, he stopped rowing while well ahead, adjusted his hat, and waited for the rest to catch up, yelling at them to hurry up – and then still won. He earned more black marks the time he turned up to row in a dirty old singlet and blue track pants, not an acceptable “look.”
All this and more – including him defecting to compete for Great Britain at the world championships — made him one of the most controversial and colourful athletes of his time but it didn’t stop him making it into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame. As they say, they don’t make them like him any more.
SHANE Watson, who finally hung up his bat this week after retiring in stages from Test cricket, then one-dayers, then the Big Bash and finally the Indian Premier League and all other T20 gigs, was nowhere near the best Australian cricketer of his generation – yet he’s probably up there as one of the richest. According to Google, he is worth $50 million, which just goes to show the value of being born at the right time, i.e. in the IPL era – as long as you’ve got the talent, of course. And he did have plenty of that, as well as plenty of critics. Ricky Ponting was never one of them, saying in tribute the other day that the powerful all-rounder was one of the most under-rated players of their joint era. Hard to disagree.
Embed from Getty ImagesJOHN Millman is one of the good guys of Australian tennis, not really a star but not just a battler either, so his first win on the ATP circuit was well received and generously applauded. He achieved this at the Kazakhstan Open, and if you’re wondering who else is on the honour roll there, the answer is … nobody. The central Asian country is far more famous for the fictitious TV journalist Borat (whose new film plumbs such new depths of tastelessness that I abandoned it halfway through) than tennis, and organised this tournament for the first time to fill one of the many gaps left on the circuit because of the pandemic. The eight seeds ranged from Frenchman Benoit Paire, ranked 27, to Australian Jordon Thompson, ranked 60. Millman, ranked 41 and seeded four, defeated Italy’s Adrian Mannarino in the final, earning the princely sum of $13,410. So yeah, Wimbledon this wasn’t – but that’s well beside the point. A title is a title, and Millman couldn’t have been more chuffed to finally have one to call his own after a couple of near misses. “It’s special,” he said.
RON REED has spent more than 50 years as a sportswriter or sports editor, mainly at The Herald and Herald Sun. He has covered just about every sport at local, national and international level, including multiple assignments at the Olympic and Commonwealth games, cricket tours, the Tour de France, America’s Cup yachting, tennis and golf majors and world title fights.
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