By Russell Bennett and Garry Howe
In what looms as a history-making Spring Racing Carnival, last year’s Lexus Melbourne Cup champion, Vow And Declare, is among those to nominate for a crack at the 2020 crown.
Nominations closed for both of Australia’s premier staying races – the Melbourne Cup and the Stella Artois Caulfield Cup – late last week, with the entry numbers for both up on last year, despite Victoria’s battle with the Covid-19 pandemic.
Champion Cranbourne hoop Craig Williams famously piloted the Danny O’Brien-trained Vow And Declare to victory in last year’s running of ‘the race that stops a nation’.
It was Williams’ maiden victory in the great race in his 15th attempt.
The horse flew the Australian flag last year as the only locally-bred horse in the field, and also had solely local owners, trainer, and jockey.
“I spoke to a lot of racing people afterwards and they said it brought back a lot of interest in the Cup – that it’s not just a race for the internationals,” part-owner Bob Leitch told Star News Group in recent weeks.
“It shows that the average Joe Blow can invest in a horse and still win the Melbourne Cup.”
Leitch was turning 50 around the time the shares were being hawked around and his wife Correne asked him what he wanted for his birthday.
He says the subsequent share in Vow And Declare is the gift that keeps on giving.
They realise how fortunate they were to share one of Australian sport’s greatest prizes – and one that has eluded so many icons of the sport over the years.
Take Williams as an example.
He grew up in a racing family – his grandfather and father were both trainers of note, and he’d ridden over 50 Group 1 winners all over the world, but his Holy Grail – the Melbourne Cup – had eluded him until last year.
To go back-to-back would rank Vow And Declare alongside the Cup’s first winner Archer (1861-62), Rain Lover (1968-69), Think Big (1974-75), and Makybe Diva (2003-05) as the only horses to achieve that feat.
O’Brien has a number of high-profile runners vying for both cups this year, including Vow And Declare – which was also the runner-up in the Caulfield Cup last year.
This year, the Caulfield Cup has attracted 177 nominations (up from 143 last year), and the Melbourne Cup 174 nominations (up from 152).
Meanwhile, O’Brien took out his first Fred Hoysted Medal, Victoria’s premier award for trainers, at the virtual broadcast of the 2020 Victorian Racing Awards last Wednesday.
He produced a string of stellar training performances throughout the season, including Russian Camelot (SA Derby) and Miami Bound (VRC Oaks) – in addition to Vow And Declare’s Melbourne Cup win and Caulfield Cup placing.
O’Brien amassed 100 winners at a strike rate of 17.7 per cent, up from 62 winners at 15.5 per cent last season.
His behind-the-scenes social media content – documenting the campaigns of runners including Vow And Declare – won particular praise from the judging panel.
It’s also been an action-packed few days for Williams, who ran third to Damien Oliver in this year’s Scobie Breasley Medal – for Victoria’s premier jockey.
This year’s medal marked Oliver’s 11th Scobie Breasley, while Williams has also claimed the award five times before.
Oliver claimed the 2020 award with 61 votes – 10 clear of Dwayne Dunn (51), with Williams (43 votes) rounding out the places. Fellow Cranbourne hoop, rising star Jye McNeil finished fifth in the count with 36 votes.
Williams held off Oliver to win his ninth Metropolitan Jockeys’ Premiership, with 70 winners for the season. It marked the fifth straight year Williams took home the Roy Higgins Medal.
The Victorian Jockeys’ Premiership – a statewide title – went right down to the wire, with McNeil pipping Daniel Stackhouse in the final week of the season to win his first such award.
In summing up the nomination numbers for this year’s premier races of the carnival, Greg Carpenter, Racing Victoria’s (RV) executive general manager of racing, said in a statement: “We were unsure as to the number of nominations that would be received this year given the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic so we’re delighted to see an increase in entries for both the Stella Artois Caulfield Cup and Lexus Melbourne Cup.
“It is pleasing that there is tremendous depth among the entries for both races with 29 Group 1 winners in the Caulfield Cup and 25 in the Melbourne Cup.
“There’s also lots of really interesting stories among the entries for racing fans and punters to follow from afar as we begin the countdown to both races in these unprecedented times.
“It’s fantastic to see the defending Melbourne Cup champion Vow And Declare among this year’s entries, and there is no question that Danny O’Brien holds an incredibly strong hand as he plots a pathway to both cups.
“The number of internationally-trained entries is higher than expected in the circumstances, due largely to the tremendous interest from Aidan and Joseph O’Brien who have an impressive list of entries in the Caulfield and Melbourne Cups.”
Carpenter said RV is planning to welcome up to 16 international horses on one-way tickets to Melbourne at the end of this month, with a provision for up to 16 on two-way tickets to join them on the same shipment from Europe.
“We have this week received travel exemptions from the Government for a limited number of staff from six international stables to enter Australia and care for their horses during the Spring Racing Carnival,” he said.
“However there remains a number of logistical challenges around flights and mandatory quarantine to overcome before that can become a reality.”
