Nothing could prepare you for Caulfield Cup

Article from: Sunday Herald Sun
Mark Harding
October 21, 2007 12:00am
YOU can pull out all the cliches you like about the great uncertainty of the turf or racing's capacity to lift you to the heavens then cut you down to size.
Nothing - nothing, could prepare you for yesterday's BMW Caulfield Cup.
Beyond the fences in the stalls area half an hour before the race, Maldivian and Eskimo Queen were being saddled less than 5m apart in stalls 42 and 44.
There was calm and serenity in the air.

Maldivian's strapper cuddled his horse's head and posed good naturedly for photos, Mark Kavanagh laughed a positive response to a crowd member who asked how the favourite was.
David Hayes walked past to his horses further down the block and wished the Kavanagh and Mike Moroney camps good luck.
Smiles all around.
In a year when the industry has been devastated by equine influenza, it was like the Caulfield Cup had come to make everything right again.
The good horses were here and the industry, at least temporarily, was united in a common goal to celebrate the good times.
But even while the Cup was being run, Kavanagh and Moroney were sharing another common emotion.
Shock. The crowd of 48,529 was in shock, too, though perhaps not quite as numbing.
The roar which traditionally greets the opening of the gates had a distinctly hollow ring to it with the $2.40 favourite and the $10 third fancy both out and many punters left without an investment on the race.
Of course, the plight of the punters was a distant second behind the shattered dreams of the Eskimo Queen and Maldivian camps.
Danny O'Brien's training quinella with Master O'Reilly and Douro Valley was a wonderful feat which in time may be celebrated in the manner it deserves.
But it was very much lost in the drama of what had happened to the favourites and what might have been.
As O'Brien accepted celebrations, Maldivian was being stitched at the veterinary hospital. In his vacant stall, there was blood on the floor from the wound which, even 10 minutes after the incident, was still gushing from the fleshy part of his neck behind his right ear.
Eskimo Queen was being walked up and down, suffering minor cuts to her leg and her head but according to Moroney suffering from nothing too serious.
Her connections were suffering terribly though, trying to come to terms with their shattered dreams and wondering what caused such a normally calm mare to thrash out.
The theory was that the ruckus of Maldivian's incident, when he caught his head on the gate after rearing, had spooked her. One of the camp wondered why Maldivian, with an early history of bad barrier behaviour, had been loaded into the gates first from his barrier one.
Moroney could only shrug. His concern, as ever, was for the future and he, at least, still has a horse.
Kavanagh's situation was more dire: Maldivian was on enough medication to rule out a start next week even if he had been fit enough.
But it soon became clear he was out of the spring.
Kavanagh waited with his horse until the vets had finished, but then had the courage and the grace to return to the mounting yard to fulfil what he saw were his public obligations.
He's been a fascinating character to watch over the past fortnight, with three Group 1 wins and lots of bubbly excitement.
The thing is, it's easy to be bubbly and friendly and talkative when things are going well. But Kavanagh showed through the extreme adversity of yesterday that as well as being a good winner he is an extremely classy loser.
Michael Rodd showed plenty of the same qualities, too. He observed that he can go to the races today and have eight rides and all will be well again - it's the trainer and the owners he feels for.
Back in the winner's stall, O'Brien was still accepting a flood of congratulations.
He's been hailed as the next big thing in training pretty much since his first Group 1 win six years ago and every year since has been better than the one before.
This will be the making of him and he's going to be awfully hard to keep out of the winner's stall at Flemington in 2 1/2 weeks' time.
What to make of yesterday's race is a major dilemma for punters, but Master O'Reilly ticks plenty of boxes as a top contender for the big Cup.
He's now won two of the best guides to the Cup - the Winning Edge Presentations Stakes, which was won by Rogan Josh (1999) and five others on the way to their Melbourne Cup wins, and the Caulfield Cup, which has produced 11 winners of the double.
But there's never been a Caulfield Cup like yesterday's, and with the greatest respect to O'Brien and the owners of Master O'Reilly, we hope there never will be one like it again