KEY POINTS:
The Flemington track is expected to dry out by Cup time today after receiving more than 20mm of rain over the weekend. Only three race meetings have been conducted on the newly-renovated course but track manager Terry Watson says it is draining well.
Watson said the track was rated a slow late yesterday but with strong breezes and clear skies he expected it could improve to dead. The forecast for today is mostly sunny with moderate winds and an expected high of 20 degrees.
OLIVER CONFIDENT
Damien Oliver believes international raider Purple Moon is the right horse to deliver him a third Cup. Oliver won the Cup with Doriemus in 1995 and scored an emotional victory on Irish stayer Media Puzzle five years ago, a week after his jockey brother Jason was killed in a trackwork fall.
He came close to bagging another Cup last year when Pop Rock was beaten a half-head by his Japanese-trained stablemate Delta Blues. Oliver will again link with an overseas runner today, this time the Luca Cumani-prepared Purple Moon.
The England-based Cumani had his first Melbourne Cup runner last year when Glistening finished 10th to Delta Blues at his first Australian start. He elected to bring Purple Moon over earlier this year and give him a leadup run in the Caulfield Cup to help him acclimatise to the Australian way of racing.
The gelding, under international jockey Kerrin McEvoy, finished an unlucky sixth to Master O'Reilly after being blocked for a run for much of the straight and powering home late once he got clear. McEvoy has been replaced by Oliver in the Melbourne Cup and the champion hoop believes Cumani has adopted the right formula for success tomorrow."It was probably a great learning curve for Luca last year," Oliver said.
"He knows what to expect this year, he seems to have come back with the right horse."
RARE FEAT
Veteran stayer On A Jeune will attempt to repeat Westcourt's feat of 90 years ago when he lines up in his third Cup. The 7-year-old has unfinished business after his barnstorming second to Makybe Diva in her history-making third Melbourne Cup win two years ago. Westcourt raced during World War I and is the only horse in cUp history to finish second in a Melbourne Cup and then win it two years later. In 1915 he chased home fellow 3-year-old Patrobas but avenged the defeat in 1917.
South Australian trainer Peter Montgomerie surrendered On A Jeune to Andrew Payne at Geelong for this year's cup campaign after equine influenza threatened to shut down all racing outside of Victoria.
On A Jeune takes his name from his sire Jeune, who won the 1994 Melbourne Cup, and changed stables the last weekend in September just as Payne was putting the finishing touches on his original Cups contender Tubular Bells. The young trainer rates his horse a "battler's chance".
MAKING HISTORY
Ask Clare Lindop how it feels to be creating history as one half of the first pair of woman jockeys to ride in the Melbourne Cup and her answer might surprise you. The top Adelaide rider doesn't know what all the fuss it about.
"I don't think it's an issue, it isn't an issue," Lindop said. "The horses are the athletes, the jockeys are just the pilots.
"It shouldn't matter if you're a girl, boy, whatever. It really doesn't." She will link with Dolphin Jo in the A$5 million showpiece tomorrow. Lindop will share the woman jockeys' room with New Zealand's leading rider Lisa Cropp who will be aboard Saturday's SAAB Quality winner Sculptor.
