A Magnificent win in the Cup

I was starving last night. Despite summer is already at the door, I still went for a big bite of ice cream under the 30 degree weather. That was still not enough. I went back home, scuffed down a couple of scorns, and then indulged myself in the contentment of all these sweets I consumed. The suffering I have to pay back today was a ripple of stomach.

“You are a rich kid after today.” The supervisor said to me after a full day of stifling work yesterday. This might be my last time to work in Melbourne Cup. Next year I may probably galloping my new life in a new world.

Three years in a roll, Makybe Diva had a magnificent win in yesterday’s Melbourne Cup. The sky never turns dark, the dream will never spoil. Melbourne Cup is always Melbournist’s cup of tea with exquisite fashions of hats.

The greatest … Diva delivers three in a row

By Alan Atwood
November 2, 2005

GLEN BOSS was in tears. Tony Santic was high-fiving anyone in sight. Lee Freedman was trying to comprehend what he’d just witnessed.

The one that seemed least excited by all this fuss was the horse that had just galloped into history. The magnificent Makybe Diva.

We will never see her like again. We will never see her on a racetrack again, unless it’s a parade of past champions. For immediately after she became the first three-time winner of the Melbourne Cup yesterday, leading home On A Jeune and Xcellent, she was retired.

She has achieved more than anyone thought possible, and now no more will be asked of her. This was her day. This was her destiny.

Trying to explain what unfolded in Australia’s richest race, jockey Glen Boss used that word often. It felt like destiny, he said. It felt like it was meant to happen; it was a weird, weird feeling.

This was more metaphysical than sports stars tend to be, but throughout Cup Day at Flemington there was a sense of fate unfolding. The roses were predominantly red and white. Throw in some blue and you had Makybe Diva’s colours, seen on caps and masks all around the course.

There was the sign held up for the TV cameras: “Leave It To Diva”. There was the crush of people around the mare’s stall before the race. Then the massed cry in the stands and on the lawns when Boss let her go for home in the straight: “Go Diva!”

Perhaps not since Phar Lap in 1930 has there been such a popular winner. “This one was for you, the people,” said Santic.

The people backed the mare and kept her a firm favourite even as a majority of racing experts swayed by history, perhaps, or the 58 kilos she had to carry, preferred others. The people stood and cheered her back to the mounting yard after the greatest Melbourne Cup win of them all.

She is the best racehorse Freedman has ever seen.

"I don't want to run Phar Lap down but I never saw Phar Lap win three cups," he said.

The mare is up there with Muhammad Ali, the trainer ventured, in the way she transcends sport. Probed further, he mentioned stirring Olympic

victories by Kieren Perkins and Cathy Freeman. But neither carried all that weight on their backs.

To win one cup is amazing, said Santic. To win two is a dream. Three is more than
history.

It was primarily Santic's call to retire the mare, but Boss and Freeman endorsed it. No horse could bow out on a higher note. Yet it almost didn't happen, with Santic revealing late yesterday he was close to retiring the mare soon after her Cox Plate vitory two Saturdays ago.

he pressure of expectations led both owner and trainer to believe they were on a hiding to nothing running her again over 3200 metres. If she lost, the horse wouldn't be blamed. She would try her best, as she always did. But her connections might be condemned for pushing her too hard, especially if she broke down.

Once they were racing, that never looked likely. "It was like deja vu," Boss said, "she was so at ease."

He spoke of seeing what would unfold before it happened. Then he added, as if playing down his own role, "It felt like if I let go of the reins she would still have gone on and done it."

There is a powerful bond between horse and rider. After crossing the line, Boss shook his head in amazement, raised his goggles, then thanked his mount with a caress.

"No one was going to stop her," said Santic. And they couldn't. Vinnie Roe, second last year, was eighth this time. The heavily backed Leica Falcon finished fourth. Despite his brinkmanship about the track (rated "dead" for the cup, then, miraculously, "good" for the next race), Freedman said he had felt that Makybe Diva would be denied a slice of history only if "Bossy" stuffed up. Instead, he turned in a copybook ride.

Surprisingly, this people's victory was witnessed by fewer people than expected, not even close to the record attendance of 122,736 set two years ago, when the Diva won her first cup.

Perhaps some were deterred by predictions of a massive crowd. It is certain, however, that the number of people who claim they were there will swell dramatically over the next few years.

But a great many who did get to Flemington will have a personal record of their close encounter with the mighty mare. After she was led into her stall soon after noon, a crowd quickly gathered around. Almost everyone had cameras of all kinds pointed at stall 75, where Makybe Diva, in shade, was relaxed and ready for her close-ups.

A TV interviewer asked people why they were taking photos. "Because she's an absolute champion," one replied. "I really respect what she's done." A father pushed his kids forward. "What was she doing?" he asked. "Just standing," his youngest replied. Other kids were on shoulders, craning for a look. And almost everyone walked away with slightly goofy looks, as if they had just caught a glimpse of Mona Lisa in the Louvre.

Thirty-five minutes before the cup, Freedman himself helped prepare the mare for the race, attending to straps and buckles. He'd done the same thing last year, but because of appalling weather and lesser expectations, worked in relative privacy. Not so this time. Cameras caught every adjustment. Strapper Christine Mitchell held the mare's head; kept her calm.

Immediately after the cup, Mitchell was crying. So was Boss and also, uncharacteristically, lost for words. But the people, Makybe Diva's people, had found their voices after holding their breath. The mighty mare had come through. She had taken everything on expectations, a quality field, and all the wise heads who felt she had too much against her and left them all behind.