This year’s Melbourne Cup was a comeback story wrapped in a tale about the Aussie battler inside a lesson about perseverance.
In an era when Australia’s famous race has become the plaything of the big stables, leviathan owners and internationals, Knight’s Choice’s boilover victory was a throwback to yesteryear: when the homebred stayer could beat the bluebloods. This is the story the Melbourne Cup needed.
Sheila Laxon shows off the trophy.Credit: Eddie Jim
Sheila Laxon and John Symons are well-known figures inside racing but do not have the financial backing of the mega-millionaires or global breeding giants to match it with a Chris Waller, Ciaron Maheror James Cummings for Australia’s richest races.
Laxon has had three near-death experiences, the most recent coming in 2002, a year after she etched her name in Australian racing folklore through the deeds of wonder mare Ethereal, the 2001 Caulfield and Melbourne Cup winner.
Symons is perhaps best remembered for his association with outstanding sprinter Bel Esprit, part-owned by legendary Essendon coach Kevin Sheedy.
The husband and wife training team have 23 horses in work. They are based on the Sunshine Coast, where they moved to supposedly retire seven years ago. Retirement is on hold.
Knight’s Choice’s story is the opposite of what the race has become. His price tag of $85,000 is a fraction of what the cashed-up owners spend on the European stayers they bring back to these shores.
His owners – Matt Bain, a managing director of a minor player in mining, and breeders Richard and Kaye Waldron – knocked back a $2.3 million offer for the horse after he won the Winx Guineas last year late in his three-year old season.
Their high-stakes gamble paid off in the form of the $4.4 million winner’s cheque, and the thrill of winning one of Australian sport’s most coveted prizes.
When Laxon won with Ethereal in 2001, the race had just become international. The visitors had yet to crack the code but were getting close. The minor placegetters were both from Europe. This win could inspire a modern revival for the locals.
Trainer Sheila Laxon pats Knight’s Choice after the big win.Credit: Eddie Jim
“Go the Aussie battlers,” Laxon, born in Wales, raised in New Zealand, and who now calls Australia home, said.
“There are horses that perform really well overseas over ground but I think in Australia because the racing is pretty tenacious, like Robbie said, it was quicker than it would be, and that probably doesn’t suit the Europeans so much.
“He knew that he had an amazing sprint from the Extreme Choice side. So I think you need to have sprinters and teach them to be stayers. That’s my theory anyway.”
It was after Knight’s Choice’s failure 12 months ago in the Golden Eagle – a race less than half of the two miles he covered at Flemington – when the trainer, or more accurately Laxon, hatched the plan to win this year’s Cup.
As the son of Extreme Choice, a sire of speed, the five-year-old should not have been running in the Melbourne Cup let alone winning it – but that is under-estimating the horsemanship of Laxon and Symons.
“Everybody tells me he’ll [Extreme Choice] never produce a stayer but if you can teach him to relax and he switches off and goes to sleep and saves all the energy, he can out sprint those stayers because they’re dour stayers,” Laxon said.
“Don’t expend any energy at all, and have that brilliant sprint at the finish – there you go, easy peasy.”
Laxon and Symons were confident they were on the right path in June when Knight’s Choice ran second behind Fawkner Park, an early Cups favourite, in the Q22, a $1.2 million weight-for-age race over 2200 metres.
But his lead-up form tested their faith – and that of punters who sent him out an unloved outsider at $91 – one of the race’s longest prices for a winner in its 164 runnings.
Jockey Robbie Dolan (centre) hoists the Melbourne Cup with trainers Sheila Laxon and John Symons.Credit: Eddie Jim
In four runs this campaign, Knight’s Choice, described as a “duffer in the wet” by Symons, finished no closer than five lengths from the winner, though, importantly, that came at his most recent start on a firm track.
“It got into the camp, we got a bit testy because we were getting the wet tracks and couldn’t see what the horse could do,” Symons said.
His run in the Bendigo Cup over 2400 metres, when an unlucky fifth behind Sea King, reinvigorated connections. If Sea King was being spruiked as a genuine contender, then Knight’s Choice did not deserve to be at such big odds, they thought. Bain clearly though highly enough of their chances to take an overnight flight from his work base in China.
Their belief would have been tested again for all but a few seconds of the three-and-a-bit minutes of the race. Jockey Robbie Dolan settled Knight’s Choice in the final third of the field, further back than hoped, but the quicker-than-expected pace played into their hands. It was not until the final 50 metres when he hit the front.
Dolan’s decision to play for inside runs rather than fanning wide saved invaluable ground in a race where the margin was a mere half head.
“You don’t always get the break,” Symons said. “If Robbie gets held up today, he gets beat. Great ride, we win. You know what racing’s like, you don’t always get the breaks.”
This time they did, etching a most unlikely chapter into the race’s storied history.
“I love it being done for the Australians,” Laxon said. “The Australian horse did it. Robbie’s an Australian as well. I’m thrilled to win the Cup. It’s the people’s cup, that’s what it’s all about.”
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