Once, twice ... three times a diva

Makybe Diva is gone and trainer Lee Freedman says she ain't coming back.

You can't go out in better style than Makybe Diva did with her stunning record-breaking A$5 million Melbourne Cup victory at Flemington yesterday.

With Makybe Diva gone there is only one avenue left for her adoring Australian fans, comparing her to that other Aussie icon Phar Lap.

Tearful jockey Glen Boss started it when he declared: "This is Phar Lap the second."

You were not about to convince any of the tens of thousands at Flemington yesterday who partied on into the night, but comparing horses of different eras is ridiculous.

Everyone is raving that Makybe Diva won a Cox Plate and a Melbourne Cup in the space of 10 days.

Phar Lap won on all four days of the week-long cup carnival in 1930. That proves more about how tough a horse is than anything else. Today's thoroughbred simply could not sustain such physical pressure.

What we saw yesterday was one of the great racetrack performances of half a century as the seven year old mare became the first horse to win three cups.

Until yesterday only four other horses had won the cup twice - Archer, Peter Pan, Rain Lover and Think Big.

Freedman, a man who says he was inspired in life and in sport by Muhammad Ali, says almost all of those who witnessed it will not see its like again.

"Go and find the youngest child on the course today and it will be the only one young enough to see again what Makybe Diva has just done."

Freedman was asked the inevitable question: Is Makybe Diva better than Phar Lap?

"I didn't notice three Melbourne Cup wins alongside Phar Lap's name in the record book."

Freedman and Makybe Diva's multimillionaire South Australian Croatian immigrant fisherman owner, Tony Santic, have undergone crushing public pressure for the week leading up to the cup.

It took that entire week for the pair to decide to run Makybe Diva in what was an impossible Melbourne Cup dream, but only 12 seconds to retire her. "This is the perfect moment to retire her," Lee Freedman whispered to Santic as the presentation was about to start and Santic replied: "I agree."

The ride was over.

When the pressure almost got too much a week ago for Freedman and Santic, Freedman said: "Look, this is only a horse race, it's not like the Middle East war or something."

Yesterday he thought differently.

And so did the tens of thousands on course who cheered home one of racing's all-time greats.