Melbourne Cup: Ex-jockey relishes view from the top

Trainer Mark Kavanagh (L) and jockey Corey Brown celebrate Melbourne Cup success. Photo / Getty Images

It pays to have guts in horse racing.

Mark Kavanagh used to be a broken-down jumps jockey riding around the smalls.

He took on the best when he turned to training and became the best in South Australia.

Two years ago he wanted to break into Melbourne.

They told him he had to take a stabling block of 26 boxes or nothing and pay rental on all straight away.

"I had one horse to put into them," said Kavanagh after yesterday winning racing's greatest prize, the A$5.5 million ($6.9 million) Emirates Melbourne Cup with Shocking.

As he had done throughout, Kavanagh didn't let impossible odds scare him and he rented, and paid for, 26 horse boxes.

It didn't do him any harm that the one horse he put in them was Maldivian, who won last year's Cox Plate.

Everyone said Kavanagh would win last week's Cox Plate with Whobegotyou, who looked more like a milk-cart horse on raceday.

Never mind, everyone said, he'd win the A$1.5 million Victoria Derby on Saturday with Shamoline Warrior.

The $2.40 favourite went sore on Saturday morning and was scratched.

Then three days later he comes out and wins racing's holy grail.

"It's the old line, you've got to keep going ahead, even if it's arse over head," he said after the biggest win of his career.

For someone so measured in most of what he does, Kavanagh goes clean mad when he wins a major race.

If you missed on television his antics as Shocking went over the Flemington finish line yesterday, you've missed the highlight of the entire spring carnival.

Shocking got into the race off the back of winning Saturday's lead-up Lexus.

And his 33-year-old winning jockey Corey Brown got the ride only after the Victoria Racing Club refused to include in the 24-horse field Brown's original Cup ride Vigor.

Asked for the secret of his success in climbing to the top of the mountain from the absolute bottom, Kavanagh said, "Plenty of confidence" - and he certainly lacks none of that. "Pay total attention to detail and don't start believing what you read in the papers. There was a lot of press that this horse couldn't win the Cup because he couldn't have won the Lexus without the perfect rails run he got and that he has a tendency to lug in.

"He has been lugging in only because he's been too fat."

If someone took a photo of Mark Kavanagh leaping about as Shocking was winning, he probably won't believe that either.

Melbourne Cup
$5,650,000, 3200m

1. 4-5 Shocking (21) 51 C Brown
2. 13-13 Crime Scene (8) 53 K McEvoy
3. 9-9 Mourilyan (5) 54.5 G Schofield

Scratched: Changingoftheguard.

Also (in finish order): 6-6 Master O'Reilly, 20-20 Harris Tweed, 2-2 Alcopop, 1-1 Viewed, 12-10 C'est La Guerre, 19-19 Kibbutz, 15-15 Newport, 5-4 Daffodil, 14-14 Munsef, 23-23 Gallions Reach, 8-8 Leica Ding, 18-18 Ista Kareem, 7-7 Allez Wonder, 22-22 Capecover, 11-12 Basaltico, 16-16 Zavite, 21-21 Spin Around, 3-3 Roman Emperor, 17-17 Fiumicino, 10-11 Warringah.

3/4L, 1-1/2L, 1-1/2L. Time: 3:23.87.

Win: $9.90. Places: $3.60, $10.80, $8.20.
Quinella: $230.10.
Trifecta: $8762.90 (21,8,5).
First4: $81,938.30 (21,8,5,4) - Carry Forward $65550.
TAB Treble: $1020.50 (1/1/21). Sub: Viewed (1).
Trainer: Mark Kavanagh, Flemington.
Breeding: 4 h Street Cry (IRE)-Maria Di Castiglia (GB). MORE