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Pulling apart the 2017 Melbourne Cup

Corey Brown riding Rekindling wins race 7 the Emirates Melbourne Cup ahead of Ben Melham riding Johannes Vermeer during Melbourne Cup Day at Flemington Racecourse on November 7, 2017 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Michael Dodge/Getty Images)
Expert
7th November, 2017
51

Another Melbourne Cup run and won. Another Lloyd Williams trophy in the cabinet at Macedon Lodge.

They say money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy horses good enough to win the race that stops the nation, as the leviathan owner went back-to-back with Rekindling following on from Almandin last year.

Barriers are always a tricky thing to assess. Many a trainer has scratched their horse after drawing too wide, preferring to wait for something easier. The Hawkes camp are notorious for complaining about bad barriers.

On the other hand, plenty of punters enjoy backing horses that have a poor gate, figuring they get over the odds. Some races, like the Doncaster Mile and Oakleigh Plate, often provide winners that have drawn wide.

In a Melbourne Cup, they are as often irrelevant as they are a key to the outcome.

More 2017 Melbourne Cup
» Race report: Rekindling wins
» Who came last
» Complete finishing order
» Watch video highlights replay
» Re-live the race with our live blog
» Regal Monarch’s horror fall
» Winning trifecta and quinella
» Winning exact and first four

Take last year’s edition, for instance. Almandin and Heartbreak City fought a memorable war down the straight, after drawing barriers 17 and 23.

Of the first six home, Hartnell in third drew the most-inside gate, with 12. Qewy, Who Shot Thebarman and Almoonqith finished fourth, fifth and sixth respectively, from barriers 15, 20 and 19.

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This year, it was a different story.

The first four home, Rekindling, Johannes Vermeer, Max Dynamite and Big Duke, all drew next to each other in barriers, four, three and two respectively.

They each enjoyed the cosiest possible runs, ensuring they had enough energy at the end of two miles to accelerate when other horses were tiring or had endured tougher runs.

The horses that finished fifth, sixth and seventh weren’t so lucky at the barrier draw. Nakeeta jumped out of 19, Thomas Hobson out of 20, while Tiberian had to make his way from gate 22.

Thomas Hobson settled last out of the home straight the first time, with Nakeeta not far in front of him. They were jagged to the tail straight out of the barriers, with their jockey’s looking to conserve energy early in the race.

They ran at least as well as some of the horses in front of them, but were never a winning threat the way the race panned out, after taking their positions at the tail.

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Poor old Tiberian was given one of the worst rides in the great race’s history, at the hands of his usual jockey Olivier Peslier. Here was exhibit A for why many international connections like to use local riders.

There can’t have been many horses cover as much ground as Tiberian was forced to. He was never closer than four wide, and was asked to move around the field mid-race despite a steady tempo being set.

To still have the gall to run seventh after spending a couple of furlongs wading through the Maribyrnong River was an outstanding performance, and he might well have been in the finish if he had drawn one of the inside barriers.

Rekindling’s win also dispelled the notion that international runners must have a run in Australia in order to take home the Melbourne Cup. Such thinking has always been overplayed, even if Vintage Crop in 1993 was the last horse to do it.

Last year, Heartbreak City went down by a nose. The year before, it was Max Dynamite running second. Red Cadeaux ran second three times – in 2011, 2013 and 2014 – without having a run in the country beforehand.

This year, five of the first seven horses home were internationals having their first run in the Australia. It should be the result that dispels that particular myth for what it is.

This Melbourne Cup did seem to lack the lustre of previous years.

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Partly, it might have been down to Winx’s third Cox Plate dominating the latter stages of October, meaning the race that stops our nation didn’t have its usual build-up.

Perhaps fatigue of the Lloyd Williams’ domination has set in, given he seems to own a quarter of the annual field or more. The Melbourne Cup has always been the people’s race, but the Williams team aren’t exactly easy to identify with.

The familiar names and older characters weren’t there. Bart Cummings and his charisma is gone. Lee Freedman, always quick with a quip, isn’t a player anymore. Damien Oliver wasn’t riding due to suspension. The current names that are familiar to genuine race fans simply don’t resonate with the wider public. The sport is more niche that it ever has been.

Inside barriers in the main race were the story of the day. Lloyd Williams winning is becoming the story of the Melbourne Cup in a historical sense. Where racing sits in the Australian landscape these days is the question for the immediate future.

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