Seventh Cup bid begins
LLOYD Williams’ quest for a seventh Melbourne Cup triumph is already in motion.
Less than 24 hours after Rekindling’s victory, the record-breaking owner confirmed the 2018 campaign had begun with three different trainers — Joseph and Aidan O’Brien and Robert Hickmott.
“We start today,” the Macedon Lodge supremo said. “Haven’t got much time. I’m in the last quarter.
“We’re living and hoping, but you never know.
“We’ve got horses with Aidan and Joseph. We’ve got horses up at Macedon Lodge.
“We’ve got yearlings, twoyear-olds, three-year-olds and you live in hope.
Williams, 77, said the template set in youngster Rekindling’s remarkable victory could be repeated with the right horse.
Regarded as a four-yearold in Australia, Rekindling is still actually three by European time but, as Williams illustrated, the colt had the formline to overcome inexperience.
“For people who wanted to listen to me, the three-yearolds in England this year have been beating the older horses,” he said. “There was a formline that if you wanted to look at from the other European horses here, the older ones, the three-yearolds from Doncaster, Goodwood and the Geoffery Freer had been beating them.
“So when you’ve got 51.5 and you know he can stay, and if you looked at the Leger run of this horse, he probably should have run second.
“There was a formline there. “My query was that this horse was running in April and here we are almost in the second week of November.”
Rekindling almost certainly will return to Ireland before a possible clash with Order Of St George, also raced by Williams, in the Ascot Gold Cup in June.