Leave Cup alone, say owners

LEADING owners Nick Williams and Terry Henderson have rebuffed Lee Freedman’s call for a cap on the number of internationals in the Melbourne Cup.

Responding to Freedman’s suggestion the Victoria Racing Club should consider amending conditions for the handicap to limit the flood of raiders to an invitational basis, Williams and Henderson disagreed.

“I think the Melbourne Cup has captured the total imagination of some of the biggest racing operations in the world,” Williams said.

“You have Sheik Mohammed and the Godolphin operation who have spent years trying to win the Cup and finally did so with Cross Counter.

“There’s Coolmore and Ballydoyle from Ireland, and you have Mr Yoshida from Japan’s Northern Farm. The internationals add a fabulous element to our fantastic race.

“If you were to restrict the number of internationals, the race would develop a very long tail.

“Lee is a great friend of mine, but I disagree.”

Internationals have won five of the past nine Cups and have 11 entrants among this year’s field. Like Williams, Henderson is a Cup-winning owner, having savoured racing’s ultimate with the Freedman-trained Doriemus in 1995. The prominent syndicator is adamant it would be a retrograde step to restrict Cup entry.

“It think it’s just silly,” Henderson said. “It would be a backwards step.

“If we want the race to be the best of its type, you can’t have a quasi-international race.”