Dubai: After a long and frustrating wait, Team Godolphin appear to have their best chance of capturing the Group 1 Melbourne Cup, Australia’s most famous flat race, which takes place at Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne on Tuesday.
The Dubai-owned stable’s untiring determination to win the demanding 3,200-metre contest is well reflected in the number of horses that will carry their famous royal blue colours, with five Godolphin horses among the full field of 24 runners that will face the starter.
Heading their team is the former British-trained Hartnell, the 7/2 ante-post favourite who is now based Down Under and raced by Godolphin’s retained handler John O’Shea.
“I think that his form warrants for him to be head of the market,” said O’Shea.
“There are horses with less form who have started shorter in Melbourne Cups and been very effective. So I think he’s entitled to be somewhere near the top of the market.”
Godolphin’s other four runners include long-serving trainer Saeed Bin Surour’s Secret Number and Beautiful Romance and the Charlie Appleby’s pair of Oceanographer and Qewy.
Bin Surour commented on his pair’s chances: “Beautiful Romance has settled in very nicely and she’s happy.
“The jockey [Damian Lane] was also happy with her, he likes her, and I’m also very pleased with her condition.”
Secret Number, who finished second to Dandino in the Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Flemington this time last year, has also pleased his Emirati trainer.
“Physically, he looks much better than last year, he’s more quiet and more relaxed,” Bin Surour said.
Commenting on Oceanographer’s recent victory in the Lexus Stakes, a performance that helped him secure his place in the line-up, Appleby said: “Kerrin [McEvoy] gave him a great ride in the Lexus and the guys over here did a great job freshening him up after the Geelong. It’s very alien for us Europeans to back one up as quick as this over this sort of trip, but he deserves to take his chance now.
“We got a nice draw in stall 11 and Qewy’s got 15, so they’re two nice draws.
“Qewy looks in great order. He did a piece of work on Friday and everyone was pleased. He’s kept his coat well and has had a nice little break between the Geelong and the Melbourne Cup.
“I’m surprised what a big price he is. I’d put him in with a live shot.”
Godolphin’s first ever runner in the Cup was Faithful Son, who finished seventh in the race in 1998. A year later Central Park came agonisingly close when finishing second, a position that Give The Slip also secured in 2001.
Every year since then Godolphin has had a runner in the race — Hartnell becoming the first Australian-trained representative.
“He was always a horse we identified as having the size, scope and pedigree to go on as a four and five-year-old in Australia,” said Godolphin chief executive John Ferguson, the long-serving bloodstock adviser of His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.
Other notable runners include top weight Big Orange, who was fifth last year, and the Irish raider Bondi Beach, the mount of big-race jockey Ryan Moore.
The Englishman, who won the race two years ago with Protectionist, said on the Hi Betfair blog: “I would like to think that I go into the Melbourne Cup with a better chance than most, and there are certainly worst draws than mine in five.
“My colt disappointed, to a degree, in this race last season but he is a year older and a year wiser now, and the simple fact that he experienced the travelling and occasion then is a big plus to his chances this time around, as is his preparation.”
Latest Odds
Melbourne Cup (G1)
Hartnell (7/2), Oceanographer (11/2), Jameka (6/1), Bondi Beach (7/1), Big Orange (10/1), Almandin (12/1), Heartbreak City (12/1), Almoonqith (14/1), Wicklow Brave (14/1), Exospheric (16/1), Curren Mirotic (20/1), Qewy (20/1), Our Ivanhowe (25/1), Secret Number (25/1), Who Shot Thebarman (25/1), Beautiful Romance (33/1), Grand Marshal (33/1), Grey Lion (33/1), Sir John Hawkwood (33/1), Assign (50/1), Excess Knowledge (50/1), Gallante (50/1), Pentathlon (66/1), Rose Of Virginia (200/1)
