LARRY'S VIEW - CUP DAY, ALWAYS A PLEASURE!

By Larry Cassidy | Friday, November 9, 2012

Larry Cassidy currently has forty-two Group 1 successes behind his name. He is a multiple Premiership winning jockey having taken out three titles in Sydney and one in Brisbane. Larry’s View, the personal blog of this top class rider will appear on horseracingonly.com.au every Friday, workload permitting.

Another Melbourne Cup has come and gone. The hype was as good as ever and the dissecting of the actual way the race panned out had its usual play-time with the old, inevitable result that there were as many different opinions as there were horses in the race.

The big race tempo was a major talking point.

They rolled along early in the straight and then they steadied and backed right off. I thought Tommy Berry actually rated Glencadam Gold beautifully out in front … for him. The majority of the favourite horses were back-markers so they realistically needed a fairly quick run race to be seen at their best and the pace that Berry set obviously worked against them.

Knowing the speed they went meant it would turn into something like a sprint home, how good was the ride by Brett Prebble on Green Moon. He came out at the right time. Brett said he thought at the time he might have gone a bit early … he didn’t obviously because he won the race. In was just a fantastic ride in the circumstances and was well deserving of a Cup win.

Whatever anybody says, you simply cannot get away from the fact that the Melbourne Cup is a fantastic race. When a race has got that level of hype about it year after year it means it has something special.

It is just such an exciting week. Every year some people try to point out its faults and flaws and every year the race goes from strength to strength, so racing is winning that battle hands down, which is good to be able to say because we don’t get the opportunity that often.

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We are all professionals in the saddle and we go out to do our job whatever the number of spectators out there, but we all benefit from the Melbourne Cup because of the spill-over effect it has on every venue where racing takes place around the country on that day.

Riding in front of a big crowd is a better experience. When a racetrack is filled with atmosphere it just adds to the hype of what we are doing.

While it might not be the same of running into that phenomenal wall of noise when you are on a horse at Flemington on Melbourne Cup day, racing at other venues can be every bit as pleasurable.

I rode at Doomben on Cup day and was fortunate enough to record a double with Mightysui and State Of Wealth.

It’s funny how certain jockeys are lucky in certain races and that was a case in point for me when I won the second race on the $9 pop Mightysui.

I have won this particular race for the last three years. I first won it on Warringah, a horse of Bruce Hills, who had run last in the Melbourne Cup the year before behind Shocking. I won it the following year with Love’s A Challenge and to win it three years in a row is, like I say, just an example of some winning trends that follow jockeys around.

Look, it’s an ordinary race … don’t get me wrong … but it is intriguing how history does repeat itself in these instances.

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I was obviously supporting my brother Jimmy on Maluckyday in the Melbourne Cup, but that was not to be.

Typically Jimmy shrugged off any disappointment he may have felt about that result and produced a phenomenal ride on Thursday to win the Oaks on Dear Demi at Flemington.

That was a great outcome for everybody after Jimmy had been sacked from the ride by John Singleton and then re-instated after Nash Rawiller picked up a suspension.

You always know where you stand with John. He is a bloke that racing needs. He is just so colourful.

Anyone can ride a bad race and you get bagged when you do so, but I guess it is the way that you bounce back that separates the best from the average.

I still regard my brother Jimmy as one of the best jockeys in Australia and he is still riding like one.

Till next week,
Larry

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