No Melbourne Cup mount yet for ‘Midge’ Didham

Press, 31 October 1983, Page 40

No Melbourne Cup mount yet for ‘Midge’ Didham

From J. J. BOYLE Melbourne The former New Zealand jockey, “Midge” Didham, was on the track at Flemington soon after dawn yesterday morning to ride No Peer in a special gallop on the course proper. He was beginning to think he had a Cup mount with a chance after the chestnut ran 1800 m in 2min 10.75 s the last 600 m in 37.5. Then he learned from the horse’s trainer, Bart Cummings, that the ride would go to John Miller, who was to arrive from Perth later in the day.

Cummings explained to Didham yesterday morning that No Peer is owned in West Australia and the owner had specially requested Cummings to engage Miller.

“If I had known that earlier I would have thought twice about making a special trip to the track this morning,” Didham told me at Flemington. Cummings believes No Peer, one of the last of the stock of the great Alcimedes racing, will take beating in the Melbourne

Cup if the footing is firm.

“He’s a horse which enjoys his racing and all his work, and he’s not a horse to work in company because of his keenness,” Cummings said yesterday morning. No Peer ran eighth in his first attempt on the Melbourne Cup two years ago. Cummings has a stronger form runner this year in Mr Jazz, a four-year-old son of Planet Kingdom with winning form up to 2500 m and a good fourth in the Mackinnon Stakes on Saturday.

The Trentham-trained Fountaincourt did striding work over two rounds next to the running rail on the course proper at Flemington yesterday. Nothing more was required of him because he had galloped 1000 m in Imin 4s on Saturday morning. The five-year-old continues to please his trainer, Cyril Pfefferle, and there is quiet confidence in the camp that last season’s Auckland Cup winner will run the race of his life in the big one tomorrow.

“I don’t think I’ll have to walk far across the birdcage to welcome him back

after the Cup,” Pfefferle said yesterday. The Irish-bred Triumphal March was on the course proper to stride over a round and quicken for the last 800 in 54.5.

Last Thursday when there were thousands at the course to see the gallops, and there was much noise about as a morning of revelling continued, the Colin Hayes-trained - Triumphal March was in a proper state of nerves.

In the early morning calm yesterday Triumphal March was as phlegmatic and as sedate as an old draught horse as he went through his work for Brent Thomson. But his connections have not forgotten Cup day last year, when Triumphal March caused a scatter and when lashing out broke a woman’s leg. Hayes believes some of his problems will be over if V.R.C. stewards allow him to put deafeners on Triumphal March until he reaches the starting gate. Hayes said he would be told tomorrow if he is able to take this course of action. “It would be in the in-

terests of everyone if they gave us permission,” Hayes said yesterday. “I would hate to see a repetition of last year’s performance before the race.”

The North Island jockey, David Walsh, came to Melbourne with his wife, Sue, last week with no firm plans to do any race riding here, but he was on the track yesterday and was pressed into service to ride a member of the Cummings team at a trot and canter minutes before the operations were wound down for the day. Walsh would not wave away the offer of a race ride while he is in Melbourne, and was inquiring yesterday about Graeme Rogerson’s choice of rider for Nostradamus, whose run at weight-for-age in the MacKinnon Stakes—he finished sixth—was well regarded as a Cup trial.

Nostradamus’s run did not escape the attention of Bart Cummings. “He might be the hardest horse to beat,” Cummings said yesterday. “He looks strong and the relief he gets in the weights

from the weight-for-age scale puts him into the Cup in the right place for him to cause some problems.” Jim Cassidy, who will ride Kiwi in the Cup, arrived from New Zealand yesterday. The Waverley stayer’s build-up for the Cup is intriguing thousands of Australians who would much prefer to see something of a New Zealand stayer’s race form beforehand before laying their money on the line. Kiwi is quartered at Mornington away from much of the fast and furious action in the count down-fpr the Cup, but his Waverley owner-trainer, Ewen (Snow) Lupton knows by now all about the great weight of media interest in a Cup fancy. “We’ve had them down at Mornington by the dozens—television, radio and the newspaper boys,” Mr Lupton told me on Derby day at Flemington.

Australians are intrigued to discover that Snow Lupton, now in his sixties, rides Kiwi in most of his work and might partner his good stayer in his final gallop at Mornington this morning.