HE DID IT FOR GODOLPHIN ... NOW CAN KERRIN MCEVOY GIVE CHRIS WALLER HIS FIRST MELBOURNE CUP WINNER?

By Graham Potter | Tuesday, November 5, 2019

Jockey Kerrin McEvoy will be looking for a record equalling fourth Melbourne Cup victory when he guides the fortunes of the six-year-old, chestnut Finche in the 2019 edition of the race that stops the nation.

McEvoy has just turned twenty years old when he famously rode Brew to victory for trainer Michael Moroney back in 2000.

He then had to wait sixteen years for Cup winner number two which arrived in the form of Almandin in 2016 in a race where McEvoy rode for owner Lloyd Williams’ team making McEvoy part of mighty Lloyd Williams Cup legacy. Williams has won the race six times.

McEvoy didn’t have to wait long for Cup win number three. In 2018 he piloted Cross Counter to victory and in so doing helped the huge, global Godolphin operation of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum claim its first win in a race they had tried to win since for thirty years.

The defending champion Cross Counter will line up again this year carrying the steadying burden of 57.5kg but McEvoy has looked further down the card and has elected to ride the more favourably weighted Finche who will carry 54kg over the testing 3200m trip.

At the time of writing Finche is third favourite at $10 behind Mer De Glace (6.50) and Constantinople ($8.00) and McEvoy could be about the help another famous stable … that of Chris Waller … to secure its first Melbourne Cup triumph.

In the last two weeks Waller’s runners have taken out the $14 million The Everest and the $7.5 million Golden Eagle. For trainer who knows how to win big races and a jockey who has ‘been there and done that’ the 2019 $7.750 million Melbourne Cup looks to be a tempting treat to top it all off.

If that happens it will take McEvoy’s record to four Cup wins … the most by any jockey, a record he would then hold jointly with Bobbie Lewis (The Victory 1902, Patrobas 1915, Artilleryman 1919 and Trivalve 1927) and Harry White (Think Big 1974 and 1975, Arwon 1978 and Hyperno 1979).

So, watch out for the superbly bred chestnut (Finche was sired by Frankel who retired with a perfect record of fourteen wins from fourteen starts) and McEvoy who should be easily identifiable in the white sleeves and the pink cap when it starts to quicken in the home straight.

Another great chapter in the professional life of Kerrin McEvoy could be about to unfold.