A year ago Mark Zahra was holed up in Byron Bay “drinking too much” and watching in despair as Verry Elleegant won the 2021 Melbourne Cup.
On Tuesday he brought top weight Gold Trip, with 57.5kg, home to win the 2022 Melbourne Cup at Flemington with Emissary second and High Emocean third. English raider Deauville Legend started favourite at $4.40 and finished fourth.
Gold Trip, which paid $18.40 for the win and $6.30 for the place, had just one career win previously but has run top five at Group 1 level six times, including a fourth in what many see as the best race in the world (the Arc de Triomphe), and a second in the Caulfield Cup two starts ago.
The French horse became just the runner to win the Cup for its second victory.
One of five runners for co-trainers Ciaron Maher and David Eustace,stablemate High Emocean, Gold Trip was given a perfect ride by Zahra, who also celebrated his first win in the race.
Maher has now completed a career sweep of the Melbourne spring carnival’s most important races.
He trained Jameka to win the 2016 Caulfield Cup and teamed up with Eustace for Cox Plate glory in 2020.
It was triumph for an old-fashioned approach to Australia’s greatest race – as well as perseverance.
Of all the Melbourne Cup runners, none has been as busy during the spring as Gold Trip.
The import went agonisingly close to winning the Caulfield Cup before taking his place against the elite in the Cox Plate and finishing unplaced.
“I feel like crying. It’s unbelievable,” said Zahra, who was embroiled in a Covid controversy last year and missed the plumb ride on Verry Elleegant. “I was thinking just piss off, no one come near me! It’s just elation when I crossed the line.”
He revealed he should have been riding Verry Elleegant in 2021 only to miss out to James McDonald.
“This time last year I was in Byron Bay and I was getting told off for drinking too much and it could have been my ride. Redemption day today. Just a miracle,” Zahra said.
“12 months ago I felt terrible and probably drinking my way out of it and [my wife] was saying ‘don’t drink too much. I said, “What do you want me to do? My horse just won the Melbourne Cup?’
“To come a full year and have redemption, with good mates of mine who train the horse and own the horse, my wife’s here, it’s an unbelievable feeling.”
The trifecta paid $17,688.60 and the first four paid $120,816.
1. Gold Trip
2. Emissary
3. High Emocean
4. Deauville Legend
5. Realm Of Flowers
6. Daqiansweet Junior
7. Smokin’ Romans
8. Stockman
9. Knights Order
10. Vow And Declare
11. Arapaho
12. Hoo Ya Mal
13. Without A Fight
14. Grand Promenade
15. Young Werther
16. Montefila
17. Tralee Rose
18. Duais
19. Numerian
20. Serpentine
21. Camorra
Failed to finish: Interpretation
SCRATCHINGS
23. Lunar Flare
24. Point Nepean
More to come
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