A MAGICAL MELBOURNE CUP MOMENT

By Graham Potter | Tuesday, November 3, 2015

It was a memorable moment in oh so many ways.

One lady rider chasing history against twenty three male rivals in one of the world’s biggest races never before won by a female rider ... doing so on an unwanted 100-1 chance that had so many injury setbacks in his career he was doing well to be even be here ... and winning!

Who could have scripted the amazing race that was the 2015 Melbourne Cup.

Prince Of Penzance had got the job done For Michelle Payne, trainer Darren Weir and a host of owners who were understandably beside themselves with joy.

Payne herself though was still calm and focussed enough after the race to give her doubters a no holds barred sideswipe.

She even managed to make her statement, ‘they can all get stuffed,’ seem eloquent and add to her legend status of the moment.

Such was the power of the first female to win the country’s most treasured cup.

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“My main strategy was to keep Prince Of Penzance calm,” Payne said, taking up the story of the race, “because he can get a little bit fired up.

“I thought my best chance of winning the race was to get him to relax and hope that he could jump well and that I could just cruise along. Unfortunately he came out really slow ... he was a bit too relaxed in the barriers

“He half walked out of the barriers which made me have to give him a bit of a click up which is what I didn’t want to do, but I had to in order to hold the position I wanted to be in.

“I waited as long as I could and I couldn’t believe when he sprinted like he did. I have never yelled so hard in all of my life at anything.

“When he went over the line it was just unbelievable. My body went a bit numb and a bit limp and I just couldn’t believe that we had won the Melbourne Cup.

"It was just a dream come true."

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“Beforehand, I had just tried to treat it as another race ... to keep calm and relax and all of that.

“When Stevie (Payne) drew barrier one on Saturday night I thought, wow, this is just incredible the way it panned out. He wanted barrier one and he got it which I thought was pretty incredible in itself.

“Then this morning I was as calm as anything. I couldn’t believe how good I felt. I was relaxed. I rode 53kg and usually that is a bit of a test, but I’d never felt so good.

“I did think, no, you are kidding yourself a little bit but that’s what racing is about. That’s why it is so great because you can dream and I dreamed about this all my life.

“This is just a testament to the fact that if you work hard, you can be lucky."

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“I’ve ridden Prince of Penzance for most of his career. I don’t think I’ve ever ridden another horse so much.
“I’ve been on him every start bar one ... and that was because I was suspended.

“I’ve ridden him in every gallop leading up to this because I didn’t want to let anyone else on him in case they didn’t do the right work or something. I’m pretty pedantic about the gallops because I think they can mean everything.

“I’ve got such respect for him because he is so tough. I just thought that if any horse is going to win the Melbourne Cup it was going to be him because of the inner strength he has.

“What he has done in some of his races ... even when he hasn’t won he has over-raced so badly ... to finish off like he does has just been incredible.

“I think being the jockey I could feel that more than anyone could see it and I said to Darren Weir about two weeks ago he is the best horse I’ve ever ridden.

“Darren sort of laughed and said he’d be happy with a top ten finish.”

The rest, as they say, is history.

Michelle Payne