Well friends, the weirdest Melbourne Cup Day in history is over, which had everything from the RV Vet scratching King Of Leogrance due to a bad case of the Barrier 18 curse, the usual Channel 10 flogging of their fleet of crap TV shows, to the once a year punters regaling everyone with the story of their freak 4-figure win on the Cup, to Makybe Diva reuniting with Glen Boss in her first appearance at Flemington in 15 years….

With nobody in the crowd to witness that magic moment in person.

And, in the race that hardly stopped the nation, Jye McNeil showed why he’ll be one of the first inductees to my Chalk Eaters Hall Of Fame, because not only has he managed to boot home Yulong horses with consummate ease, in his MAIDEN Cup ride, he pulls off an all-time epic front running effort to make Twilight Payment the first 8-year-old in 82 years to win the Cup, the first horse since Might And Power in 1997 to lead all the way, and it seems ironic that he did it in the year that old Mighty passed away.

Last year Twilight Payment led at a crawl and got run over, this time around he leads again, and finds the perfect balance of setting enough pace to get the field off the bit early, and still having enough in hand.

Simply superb – You’d run out of superlatives describing how well McNeil rode that.

Just to confirm how damn good the win was, Twlight Payment’s winning time was 3.17.31 – The 4th fastest Cup in the Metric era, only a second behind Kingston Rule’s record time from 1990.

Of course, there was the tragedy of Anthony van Dyck, whose name I always loved making a joke about, breaking down at the 300m with a fractured fetlock that required a humane euthanising, which once again ignited the fire under the 5-minute activists with the death of another Cup runner.

Once again, these are the same people who won’t give two shits about more serious accidents involving jockeys and horses that occur during the year around the country, but Cup Day rolls around and we get a tragic accident and whip breaches, and the usual animal cruelty comments fly out.

If you’re really committed to hating horse racing, go out and picket a crap joint like Beaudesert or Kembla when there’s a meeting on.

You know what the coincidence is with 99% of these recent horse deaths in the Cup?

They were all Internationals based out at Werribee.

Araldo is the outlier, in that he was trained locally by Michael Moroney, and his accident was after the 2014 race, when he was spooked by a child’s flag and suffered a fractured leg kicking out.

As noted by Dr Rob McInnes, if you include the recent International horse deaths at Werribee, the root cause seems to be that the European horses in particular just aren’t accustomed to the firmer and tighter (Compared to home) nature of Australian racecourses.

It’ll happen again, whether we like it or not, and all we can do is continue to learn and understand.

Anyway, I think the Chalk Eaters went rather well today.

Joviality in the Desirable Stakes – Has she got out yet?

A lovely barrier trial ahead of the Oaks on Thursday.

Wait a minute…..

Ain’tnodeeldun in the TAB Trophy at Flemington – WINNER

Well, that’s 3 easy kills in a row for the future ATC Derby favourite, and assuming all goes well, I think we’ll be seeing him go very well in Sydney.

In what was a sign of things to come at 3 o’clock, Mark Zahra on Ultimate Edition made it an absolute ball-tearer of a race, and that questionable piece of riding almost took the favourite with him, because Lane was sitting 3rd on that speed, had to cart up to the leaders facing the breeze down the back, and took the lead 500m out, far earlier than expected.

But, despite a good challenge from Confrontational, Frosty Lane had the race under lock and key, and the Chalk Eaters of Australia saluted thanks to a budding young stayer who will inevitably fizzle out in a few years.

On another note, I backed Grinzinger Lord for the place…. goodness me, Newzeel Deal was about 5 metres away from tipping him out!

Melbourne Cup Place Tip

Tiger Moth – SUCCESS (2nd Place)

You can tell 2020 is a strange year, because for the first time in living memory, I wasn’t disappointed after the running of the Melbourne Cup.

In my view, Tiger Moth more than vindicated the hype around himself, trying to win a Cup at start No.5 – Kerrin McEvoy did a huge amount of work from Barrier 23, but was able to land in a nice spot, then he had every excuse to drop out in the run behind that speed, but his talent shone through, and honestly, at the Clock Tower I thought he was going to swamp Twilight Payment, but that winning ride was just too good.

In fact, another couple of strides and the unlucky Prince Of Arran probably runs 2nd instead!

So I got an easy 90 bucks back, which is probably more than what Kerrin McEvoy made from the ride after he got a $50,000 fine for whip breaches.

It turned what had been another typical shitty Cup Day for me into an average one, which is right up my alley.

Also, how about that go on Surprise Baby into outright favourite before the race, which just screamed of the ANZACs trying to get back at the superior Europeans.

HE DIDN’T EVEN FINISH IN THE TOP 10.

Gone Bye in Race 6 at Randwick – 2nd

That was actually a damn good performance under the circumstances.

Gone Bye looked every bit like his name on the turn after Rock Amore served it up from the lead, then he kicked back and took the lead, then he looked gone again when Atlantic King and Rathvilly Miss made their runs, but he just kept fighting it out, and while Atlantic King went on to a comfortable win, Gone Bye managed to edge out Rathvilly Miss, and only went down by a length.

Good run, but Atlantic King had him covered, and if you notice closely, I think Jason Collett said “Gone, Bye” to young Tommy Sherry at the 50m.

Brave Dream in Race 7 at Ascot – WINNER

Like shelling peas, folks.

I’ll be honest, it looked like Holyoake was going to mow her down at the 100m after charging hard from the rear, but a couple of cracks with the persuader from C.Parnham saw the mare home, completing the progression from Maiden to Class 1.

And yes Elvis, YOU CAN DREAM.

Crazy Craig’s Not So Lucky Lips Tip Of The Day

Cordilla in the Hong Kong Jockey Club Stakes – NOPE

There’s only one conclusion I can reach from this one, besides Cordilla being another Clan O’Sullivan type….

RICH HIPS HAS BEATEN LUCKY LIPS!

Holy moly, that was some kind of win.