Chaos, carnage in rare Aussie win
It was the most dramatic finish of Vow And Declare’s Melbourne Cup, with a protest changing the minor placings and some jockeys in deep trouble with racing’s sheriffs.
In a desperate finish involving four horses, Vow And Declare, trained in Melbourne by Danny O’Brien and ridden by Craig Williams, took an inside run and put his head down when it counted to win in a photo finish.
Master Of Reality looked set to give jockey Frankie Dettori his first win, shooting clear at the 200m before just failing to hold off the winner. He was second across the line but shifted alarmingly inwards, squeezing the path of the fast finishing Il Paradiso, who was sandwiched up against Vow And Declare.
Further out in the centre of the track, Prince Of Arran, ridden by Kiwi expat Michael Walker, seemed to think he might have won with a whip flourish after the line, but he finished a provisional third – his same placing last year.
The margins involving the placegetters across the line were a head between first and second with a nose to third.
The result was finally settled in the stewards room. Stewards protested on behalf of the fourth horse, Il Paradiso, against Master
Of Reality, even though Il Paradiso’s jockey Wayne Lordan declined to lodge a protest.
Il Paradiso’s Irish trainer, Aidan O’Brien, is the father of Master Of Reality’s trainer Joseph O’Brien.
The protest was upheld, with Master Of Reality relegated to fourth, Prince of Arran promoted to second and Il Paradiso moved up to third.
That dispute was worth almost $1m given the difference in prizemoney between second (A$1.1m (NZ$1.18m)), third (A$550,000 (NZ$592,000)) and fourth (A$350,000 (NZ$377,000)).
But Walker soon found his share of second prizemoney,
A$55,000, was about to take a chop, with stewards fining him A$10,000 and banning him from riding for seven race meetings because of excessive whip use.
Dettori, who faced a hearing over his actions short of the winning post, told reporters: ‘‘I want to cry,’’ before heading into the jockeys’ room.
At a subsequent inquiry, Dettori pleaded guilty to a careless riding charge, deemed in the low range, and was suspended for nine meetings. Dettori will begin the ban immediately and will have to delay the start of a fourweek contract to ride in Japan.
Despite the post-race drama, the winning connections were unaffected, enjoying a rare cup win this decade by an Australianbred horse. The four-year-old gelding was the first Australian-bred winner since Shocking in 2009.
Williams famously missed the winning ride on the Frenchtrained Dunaden in the 2011 Melbourne Cup because of suspension, but he joins Neville Sellwood, Roy Higgins, Pat Hyland, Mick Dittman, Jim Cassidy, Damien Oliver and Chris Munce as the only jockeys to win the ‘‘grand slam’’ of Australian racing – the Golden Slipper, Caulfield Cup, Cox Plate and Melbourne Cup.