Australian stayer Half Yours smashed an international field to land the G1 Melbourne Cup, while Ka Ying Rising, a sprinter bred in New Zealand – a country far better known for producing stayers – has emerged as the fastest horse on the planet.
Meanwhile, in the United States, Forever Young became the first Japanese-trained horse to win the G1 Breeders’ Cup Classic, toppling America’s finest on dirt.
So many of racing’s long-held truisms have been tossed out the window over the past month.
In the words of one of the Melbourne Cup’s most famous admirers Mark Twain, the reports of the demise of the Australian stayer were greatly exaggerated if Tuesday’s win by Half Yours was anything to go by.
Foaled at Blue Gum Farm in Euroa, an hour and a half north of Melbourne, Half Yours is a throwback to a bygone Melbourne Cup era. He could have walked right out of the 1970s, a time when the Cup still drew parochial cheers for homegrown heroes rather than cosmopolitan imports.
The race has changed immeasurably in the half-century since: in 1975, there were nine Australian-bred horses and 11 bred in New Zealand. This year, there were eight runners bred in Ireland, seven in France, three in Great Britain, two in New Zealand and the USA and one each in Japan and, of course, Australia.
And yet it was the 12th generation Australian in Half Yours, aided by his Irish-bred sire St Jean – a Group 3 winner in New Zealand – who saw off a diverse field assembled from four continents.
Australian-bred winners of the Melbourne Cup are not unheard of in the import era – Vow And Declare and Knight’s Choice proved it could still be done in recent years – but Half Yours was an underdog on multiple levels.
His win marked the first Melbourne Cup triumph by a Victorian-bred horse in 52 years, since Gala Supreme in 1973, while Observer’s victory in the G1 Victoria Derby just three days earlier completed a historic double – the first time since 1944 that both the Derby and the Cup were won by horses bred in Victoria.
He was also the first Australian-bred to win the country’s famous handicap double – the Caulfield Cup and Melbourne Cup – since Rivette in 1939.
Australia is still renowned for speed; from 1000 metres to a mile, its turf sprinters remain the envy of the world. Collectively Australia would dominate the world in that division.
Australia’s breeding program has long leaned into that strength – and it is an irony that Irish runner-up Goodie Two Shoes is by Fastnet Rock, a G1 Lightning Stakes winner over 1000m at Flemington who has epitomised that need for speed.
Beyond a mile, though, the cupboard has looked bare for too long. Compared to Europe or Japan, where many large operations breed to race, Australia’s breeding industry is geared towards the yearling sales and a quick return. The staying ranks have depended heavily on imports.
Half Yours may not herald an immediate renaissance but his Melbourne Cup triumph proves that the genes still exist to produce strong stayers in Australia. Whether this moment signals a rebirth or a brief flicker remains to be seen.
Half Yours’ historic triumph, Ka Ying Rising’s sprinting brilliance and Forever Young’s international dominance show how global the game has become – borders blurred, styles mixed, assumptions challenged.
For now, they have flipped the narrative. In a sport forever chasing its next “sure win”, that feels wonderfully, defiantly uncertain. ∎
