This year, perhaps more than for a long time, the Melbourne Cup was a sheer lottery.
Fuelled by growing international involvement, the weeks leading up to the race and the unpredictable contest itself were charged with drama.
Conventional form was hard to spot in the outcome. If you wagered successfully in the Melbourne Cup this year it was most likely on account of your faith rather than because of logical form analysis, on account of impressions formed of horses when they were previously at their peaks and who you trusted would revert to their peaks on the day.
Winner (by a small pimple) Viewed had not filled a place in his preparation. The historical stats will show he finished last in his lead-up race just three days before.
Third placegetter C’est La Guerre (NZ) had not filled a place previously this preparation.
Fourth placegetter Master O’Reilly (NZ) had placed only once from four lead-up starts.
Only runner-up Bauer (Ire) had been meaningfully on the board, via his Geelong Cup victory at his only prior Australian start.
Coincidentally, last year’s winner Efficient (NZ) did not fill a place in any of his four lead-up races. You have to go back a long way to find the next previous example of a winner without a conventional spring form line.
Such is the nature of a 3200m handicap with 22 starters, seven of whom travelled across the globe to run. There are lots of unknowns and lots of possible permutations. The final 800m of these races can be unforgiving.
But the constant in modern Melbourne Cup history has been Bart Cummings. How ironic, given Bart's well-aired views about overseas horses competing in the race, that it should be a JBC horse which deprived yet another import of victory.
Viewed gave him an unbelievable 12th success in the race, by the width of one of Bart’s bushy eyebrow hairs. Nobody now living is likely to see a comparable record put together, and, conceivably, Bart is not finished yet. I see quite a bit of Bart around the traps and he is one sharp 80-year-old! Lee Freedman is 30 years younger than Bart and has five Melbourne Cups in the cupboard so if he lives a long and productive life Lee has a statistical chance – but his stable couldn’t field a starter this year. You need a certain type of owner prepared to go the stayer’s route and in four-time winner Dato Tan Chin Nam Bart has had such an ally for decades.
Here is an amazing fact: in the last 16 years only three Australian-breds have won the Melbourne Cup. Bart has trained all of them. Viewed this year, Rogan Josh in 1999 and Saintly (conceived in NZ but foaled in Australia) in 1996. Of his nine other winners, starting with Light Fingers (NZ) in 1965, eight were NZ-bred and one USA-bred.
Viewed will owe a lot of his stamina to his NZ family heritage and, of course, to Sir Tristram (Ire), sire of his grandam. His fourth dam is the famous polo-playing mare Wuthering Heights (by Avocat General (Ire)). She is also the sixth dam of Weekend Hussler who, perversely, has shown there are clear limits to his stamina. Interestingly, Viewed carries on the bottom side of his pedigree a line of L’Enjoleur, twice Canadian Horse Of The Year, as does G1 Epsom and Mackinnon winner Theseo.
Viewed comes from the 13th crop of now-deceased Scenic (Ire), the first son of Sadler’s Wells at stud in Australia and still easily the best. His crop of 48 foals in 1998-99 is the only one not to contain stakeswinners of which he has had 66 worldwide including 10 Group 1 winners, all in Australia. Scenic drifted in and out of fashion like bell bottom trousers and you were doing well if in any given year you could nominate correctly where he was standing. He finished his time covering at a fee of $16,500 in Western Australia, dying in early 2005 aged 19.
I haven't looked underneath to check, but if the official data is correct, Viewed is the first Australian-bred entire to win a Melbourne Cup since Rain Lover in 1969. It’s said to be the kiss-of-death for a stallion. Judge for yourself: the other entires to win since Rain Lover have been Silver Knight (NZ), Beldale Ball (USA), At Talaq (USA), Tawriffic (NZ), Kingston Rule (USA), Jeune (GB) and Delta Blues (JPN) in 2006. Of those used at stud in Australia, Jeune was given the best opportunity by breeders, averaging 95 mares a year for 10 seasons. At Talaq averaged 60, Kingston Rule 39 and Tawriffic 26 prior to his export to Ireland as a 14-year-old. Silver Knight sired four stakeswinners including, significantly, the 1984 Melbourne Cup winner Black Knight.
Yes, three Australian-bred Melbourne Cup winners in 16 years. And Bart trained them all. And who was the next Australian-bred to finish behind Viewed? Moatize, sixth. Good old Bart trains him, too. Don't ya love him!
7 comments:
What do we make of this Spring carnival, Steve?
Viewed wasn't the only feature race winner not to have run a drum at his 4 preceding starts.
Maldivian won our premier WFA race with a simliar formline.
The Derby throws up a 100/1 winner, and the Caulfield Cup a 40/1.
And on form, only All The Good could be said to have been overs.
Thus far, the Ascot Vale is the race of the Spring for me.
At Talaq went ok, 25 stakeswinners, inc 4 indv G1 winners and now becoming a good broodmare sire of Rewaaya, Above Deck, Mummify and of course Weekend Hussler's grand dam is by At Talaq, wish we had more like him? I think Jeune has managed 20 indv stakewinners so far also, with probably a few more still to come.
Clearly, the Ascot Vale (Coolmore) will have the biggest impact on the breed. A half-share in Northern Meteor has been valued at $20 million by his owner. They were a nice bunch of colts in that race.
Re Melbourne Cup winning stallions, as you point out several of them have made useful contributions, the unfortunate part being with few exceptions they have been condemned from the start by most broodmare owners. Where these horse end up standing has some influence on their fate, too. Viewed would figure to be as unfashionable as most unless he proves a WFA champion in the next 12 months.
Hi Steve, I see Viewed is out of a Khozaam mare. I'm sure in your travels you have come across Khozaam and know more about him?. A quick look on the ASB site reveals there are only 4 Khozaam mares still producing, more interesting is the strike rate of the nick with Grand Sons of Northern Dancer. Viewed G1(Scenic), Devastating G1 plc(Pentire), Benedetti G1 plc (Second Empire). I'm sure there are a few more mares in NZ still producing, but from a relative small number this nick % seems high?
Khozaam (USA) was a decent enough racehorse in England (Timeform 122) and later the USA and was imported to NZ at the start of the last Great Recession (1989) where he was desperately unloved in the five seasons he stood at Highview, 1989-1993, leaving just 120 live foals in that country. 46 of them were fillies which later found their way into the annals of breeding in NZ of which a rapidly ageing 10 are still active. Languishing at a stud fee of $2,000, in 1994 Khozaam was trundled off to the Philippines, several of whose prominent breeders and owners were regular big shoppers in the depressed NZ marketplace around that time (Conquistarose (USA) was another who headed up that way the same year.). As far as Australasia is concerned, he was a hit-and-miss sire of runners with just 36 individual winners from 135 to race, but nine of those were stakeswinners, the best being What Can I Say (NZ) who was raced by a Filipino, Jose Quiros, instrumental in the sire’s relocation. Khozaam seems to have done a bit better as a broodmare sire with a higher strike rate and nine stakeswinners out of his daughters including Viewed, G1 winner Special Mission and Only Words, a mudlark like her mother What Can I Say. What Can I Say, ridden by Chris Munce, famously upset champions Tie The Knot and Might And Power in a boggy 1998 Warwick Stakes. With just one female strain of Northern Dancer in his pedigree (Fanfreluche), Khozaam was always likely to be receptive to his blood, especially given the preponderance of mares by stallions from that line in the last 20 years. The 17 black-type performers produced by daughters of Khozaam include 13 by Northern Dancer-line sires and one by a sire whose dam was by Northern Dancer. Northern Dancer covers a very broad spectrum and Khozaam was going to get more of those mares than any other sort so I wouldn’t go so far as to declare it a nick. Khozaam’s female family is strongly established in ANZ. From the same line come Charge Forward and the broodmare Chelsey’s Image which I bought in Kentucky 12 months ago and is pictured on this blog, in the sidebar. Pity Scenic isn’t around to put her to; she’s in foal to Dylan Thomas (Ire) – Northern Dancer line – instead.
I have a TB mare whose branding has informed me she is By Khozaam, out of Lucy Austin, bred in 1989 by highview, owned then by Mrs J Smith. Does anyone have any information regarding why she never continued her career in the racing industry. She was a sucessful eventer and jumping horse and at rising 20yr is still incredibly quick!
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