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        RACING FORUM >> Francesca Cumani's take on Melbourne Cup
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Torquil



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Posted: Thu Oct 27, 2011 21:50 pm

Don't be so insecure over Melbourne Cup
• by: Francesca Cumani
• From: Herald Sun
• October 28, 2011 12:00AM
AUSTRALIA should stop seeking endorsement from overseas for the Melbourne Cup.
I have been coming here for five years and it continues to surprise me that locals need their great race authenticated or approved by foreigners.
I don't think my Dad (Luca) or Dermot Weld or Frankie Dettori saying the Melbourne Cup is a great race makes it any better than it already is.
A personal bugbear is the fascination with getting mainly celebrities with no connection to racing to appear for half an hour, under-dressed and uninterested in the sport.
By doing that, I think it shows an insecurity in a race, an event, a carnival which is like no other. It is the rest of the world that has much to learn from how Australia presents racing - not the other way around.
The continual talk about capping the number of international horses in the Cup is ridiculous.

Surely everyone wants the Cup to be the best race it can possibly be, and for that to happen we need the best 24 two-miler (3200m) horses to line up. If they happen to be 90 per cent horses bred in Europe then so be it.
If half the field is trained by overseas trainers, who cares? Wouldn't it be worse if the international raiders were not coming?
The race that stops a nation would be reduced to the wealthy stables with their million-dollar imports versus local breds that end up as stayers because they don't have the speed for sprinting.
If the view is that there are not enough locals in the field, then it's time to improve local breeding and incentives for stayers, or buy stayers from abroad.
Let's not forget that the Caulfield Cup and the Melbourne Cup between them offer almost $9 million in prizemoney. Capping numbers would be like not allowing Aussie sprinters at Royal Ascot because they keep winning! We want them to come and we happily admit Australia has the best sprinters.
Don't forget an English trainer is yet to win the Melbourne Cup. Don't change things. I think the Melbourne Cup is such a great race just the way it is.
The Arc de Triomphe in France is the world's most important weight-for-age race, but even my Dad said he would get more emotional winning a Melbourne Cup than an Arc because of the enormous build-up to the race and because of what it means to so many people.

The Melbourne Cup has an enormous influence on the lives of the people connected to it and I am a case in point.
When I walked off the plane five years ago to help my Dad get two horses ready for the Melbourne Cup, I never dreamed I would be where I am now.

On that first trip, people talked about how winning the Melbourne Cup is a life-changing experience.
My family hasn't even won the race - yes, don't remind me we've run two seconds - but the race has already changed my life.

The responsibility of being in charge of our horses for my first three trips to Melbourne and the anguish of going so close to winning with Purple Moon (2007) and Bauer (2008) has taught me a lot and really toughened me up.
I burst into tears when Purple Moon got beaten because I really thought he would win. I have since learnt to take the ups with the downs.
I've also got the Melbourne Cup Carnival to thank for opening up a wonderful career opportunity for me. Working on TV's racing coverage had always been in the back of my mind, but I'd never had the guts to pursue it. I needed a push from Andy Kay at Channel 7 to say "come and do it".
Next year I will be working in the media at five or six of the world's biggest races, all thanks to the doors the Melbourne Cup Carnival opened.
While coming to Melbourne has changed my life, it hasn't changed me. I'm at my most comfortable down at Werribee with the horses, but being able to sit in front of a TV camera and talk about racing is a dream come true. And if it instills a passion in others for this great sport then I could not be happier.

The Melbourne Cup being a handicap race, while the world's other biggest races are all weight-for-age, fits with the Australian culture and the idea of the "fair go". That's different to our racing back home, which unfortunately is perceived as more elitist.
The battler from the bush can come and beat the multi-million dollar operations because a good horse can crop up anywhere.

If you ask me, you need a horse with a light weight on its back and a big heart to win a race like this.

It's the ultimate handicap in the world, the most enigmatic staying test in the world, a race that should be open to all-comers from anywhere in the world, and, above all, the race that every racing enthusiast should strive to win.
Don't worry, the eyes of the racing world will be upon Flemington come Cup day.
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