It doesn’t matter what year it is, you can always guarantee the Flemington mounting yard in the minutes before and after a Melbourne Cup will be pandemonium.
The day Makybe Diva won an unprecedented third straight Cup, trainer Lee Freedman was crushed by everyone: jubilant connections, officials, hangers on, dozens of media hunting for a morsel to hold up the back page.
The very next year, the Japanese duo of Delta Blues and Pop Rock ran one-two in the race. Sensing there might be a problem, every media person in the paddock started scratching their heads and wondering: is there an interpreter on track?
The Melbourne Cup, whether local punters like it or not, still has its traditional mounting yard mayhem but has increasingly been a cosmopolitan race this century. Winners have come from everywhere: Ireland, England, France, Germany, Japan.
But there’s been one final frontier the Victoria Racing Club hasn’t conquered – the United States.
The Melbourne Cup hasn’t even had an American-trained runner, let alone a winner. Yet that might all be about to change with legendary horseman Bill Mott on the brink of smashing the Cup’s glass ceiling.
In a bid to entice top American horses Down Under, the VRC has offered a golden ticket through the Belmont Gold Cup recently. Mott’s Parchment Party, a A$700,000 yearling for the progressive Pin Oak Stud, won the G2 race in early June, and only after treacherous weather conditions forced its shift from grass to a dirt track.
The news barely created a ripple in Australia, mainly because it’s thought the quarantine toll of travelling horses from the United States to Australia makes any trip almost impossible.
Given the Australian government doesn’t have an approved quarantine centre in America, horses must travel to the United Kingdom for their mandatory period and then enter quarantine again once they arrive in Australia.
“It’s a pain in the arse,” Mott laughs when asked about the arrangements by Idol Horse. “Just for that reason it makes it a little bit more challenging to do.”
But it doesn’t look like it will stop them potentially breaking down one last barrier for the Melbourne Cup.
“We’re looking at all those possibilities, yes,” Mott says. “We’ve started gathering information on what it takes to do the quarantine just to get there. That’s a challenge in itself, and probably as difficult as winning the race.”
It is easier now than it was when Grade 1 winner Rosedale made the trip in 1987.
Rosedale raced at the now-defunct Hollywood Park in mid-June before entering quarantine in Los Angeles in late July. He arrived in New Zealand, where he was based for 40 days; he raced once at Tauranga to maintain fitness. He joined Bart Cummings in Sydney, having one start at Randwick in late September and four starts in Melbourne in October before finishing third to Kensei in the Melbourne Cup.
Parchment Party has proven his credentials on the American dirt, a far cry from the lush Flemington grass his hooves will kiss if he makes it to the gates on the first Tuesday in November.
“The owners are excited about bringing him over,” Mott says. “I don’t think he would be one of the favourites if he came. He’s a nice big horse, a good horse, but I’m not so positive he’s as good on the turf as he is on the dirt. But he’s a nice horse who wants the distance.”
Pin Oak’s principals, Dana and Jim Bernhard, purchased the business from Josephine Abercrombie, who was breeding horses well into her 90s. She died in early 2022, just days shy of her 96th birthday.
The Bernhards have come into the industry with eyes wide open, exploring how science and technology can be integrated into horse racing.
Their son, Ben, left his job as a rocket scientist to immerse himself in the industry, bringing with him a maths and engineering background. He invented equine sensors to be used on their horses in the hope it can detect potential injuries before they occur.
Now, the Bernhards and Mott – whose long list of wins includes the inaugural Dubai World Cup with Cigar in 1996 and this year’s Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes with Sovereignty – might be the inspiration for one of the most unlikely Melbourne Cup runners in the race’s history.
“I know it’s a big deal and they say they close down the country on Melbourne Cup day,” Mott says. “We all know about it, not that I’m a student of it. But we’ve all heard about it and know the importance of it over there.
“I know most of your horses that are over there, the European-bred horses – French, English, Irish – their pedigrees are more natural for that particular race. The American pedigrees are mostly bred for dirt and not necessarily that distance.”
Five American-bred horses have won the Melbourne Cup: Beldale Ball (1980), At Talaq (1986), Kingston Rule (1990), Media Puzzle (2002) and Americain (2010).
Parchment Party will run in the Listed Birdstone Stakes on dirt at Saratoga for his final start before a probable Melbourne Cup campaign. He will have a legion of nervy administrators in Australia watching on, hoping he can hold his form and start the marathon journey to the Cup.
If it’s been good enough for the Irish, English, French, Germans and Japanese, why not now an American? ∎
