Just after 2pm, the first familiar roar rose from the throng crowded under televisions, near the bar and on the lawn as Renaissance Man reeled in the fillies in the Ethereal Stakes.
It was the first inkling the Caulfield Cup had returned in all its glory post-COVID, the crowd thinner than pre-pandemic levels, perhaps the floods around Victoria deterring racegoers, perhaps the spring habit a little rusty.
This was not a Caulfield Cup field for the ages. The favourite Smokin’ Romans had emerged from a Pakenham Cup 12 months earlier to be the people’s favourite, the light blue caps adorning his name populating the mounting yard.
There was a gilt-edged French horse called Gold Trip in the same Ciaron Maher-David Eustace stable as the favourite carrying the top weight and a frontrunner Knights Order that, obviously, was prepared to set the pace by Gai Waterhouse.
Josh Parr riding Renaissance Woman in front of a big Caulfield Cup crowd on the lawns.Credit:Getty Images
Throw in last year’s Caulfield Cup runner-up Noncomformist, the Melbourne Cup winner Vow and Declare and another old stager, Sound, 10 years old, but running like he didn’t know he had hit double figures.
One horse, Maximal, was scratched. No-one much cared except those involved with a Chris Waller-trained gelding Durston. He was given No.19, a light weight and little chance, even in such a field, of becoming the first emergency to actually win the race.
On board was Michael Dee, a big-grinning jockey who looks like he would have been called Micky Dee from the moment he left hospital to make his way in the world.
Dee’s manager Travis Johnstone, the No.1 draft pick in the 1997 national draft, a ‘Dees’ man through and through having played 160 games with Melbourne before a three-year stint with the Brisbane Lions.
“On a day of devastating floods for Victorians, this was the only place in the state where people were cheering for an emergency.”
Waller had remained in Sydney to watch his champion sprinter Nature Strip attempt to mow down his rivals in the Everest Handicap rather than make his way to Caulfield. Jo Taylor, his trusty sidekick, was on hand.
Their owners Highclere Australia, led by director Tony Fleiter, stood as anonymously as the seven-year-old they were supporting, watching on, hoping for a good showing in a race they had spent the week thinking was out of their reach.
Fleiter had remained positive, hopeful. He has a good eye for horses, having purchased the Cups winning mare Let’s Elope more than 30 years before, having spent a lifetime in racing. Some of it was, he said, spent jogging around Caulfield when he lived nearby, a relative lightweight back then.
Durston (at the front) stretches to win at the finishing post.Credit:Getty Images
This, of course, was a different Caulfield track then the one Fleiter ran around then. The old buildings at the back of the grandstand are gone, demolished, with the sirens protesting the move loud but not loud enough. The overall impression was of a job half done, a raceday nearly but not quite as prominent has it had been. The lack of media in the press room was indication of how times have changed, even allowing for the distracting sprint in the harbour town.
The urgent walks of anyone within the mounting yard watching the horse’s parade in languid fashion had never disappeared but with the crowd yahooing to their left and their right, those involved looked even more frantic.
As the barriers opened the traditional thunderclap of noise accompanied the thundering sound of hooves working their way to the first turn, eyes peeled on the big screen rather than the rumps leaving the straight and heading off to the back straight.
When the field turned Durston was nowhere, hidden on the worst part of the track as Knights Order then Gold Trip took up the running. Durston decided the only way out of trouble was diagonally, knocking over Tralee Rose as though she was a pawn to Durston’s bishop in a dangerous game of chess.
Once in the clear the weight pull on Gold Trip told and Dee rode hands and heels into Caulfield Cup history becoming the first emergency in the race’s history to salute. On a day of devastating floods for Victorians, this was the only place in the state where people were cheering for an emergency.
Highclere Australia’s social media manager burst into tears, overwhelmed with excitement before pointing to Fleiter as the man to speak to about the unexpected result.
“We have won a lot of good races along the way, but the aim was always to come here and win a Caulfield-Melbourne Cup, and we have won one of the two we wanted,” Fleiter said.
‘See you on Melbourne Cup day’ someone yelled in his direction as Waterhouse gathered connections to remind them all was on track for that first Tuesday in November, the front running that kept running when all expected him to stop.
The familiar faces had never left, but they shone brighter with crowds around them once again.
The Caulfield Cup had been won and run in the way it once was, a distraction many on and off the track needed.
