Kiwi poised to make history in Melbourne Cup today

Press, 1 November 1983, Page 39

Kiwi poised to make history in Melbourne Cup today

From

J. J. BOYLE

in Melbourne

Our hearts ruled our heads six years ago when we tried to make a case for Reckless to beat Gold and Black in the Melbourne Cup.

The whole Australian nation would have gone wild with excitement if Reckless had won that Melbourne Cup for Tommy Woodcock, that gentle, likeable oldster who was identified so closely with Phar Lap. Reckless gave it a great try but bowed to a stayer from the stable of cups wizard, Bart Cummings. This year our hearts tell us that either Kiwi, or Fountaincourt could win the Cup for New Zealand. But the historians in our ranks say no. Melbourne Cups we are reminded have been out of reach for Auckland and Wellington Cup winners. Or have been so far. However much of the fabric that goes into racing takes on eccentric patterns, and is there a better place than historic Flemington and a greater race than the Melbourne Cup to produce another brilliant chapter for the historians today. • The Waverley owned and trained Kiwi is the Cup candidate intriguing Australians more than any other runner.

He attempts to end the drought for Wellington Cup winners in the Great Australian race. And he has to prove to the unconverted that he is capable of winning at his very first start bn Australian soil. Even (Snow) Lupton, who races Kiwi in partnership with his wife, Anne, appreciates the fact that the unusual background of his stayer has perplexed, vexed and intrigued many Australians seeking to influence or mirror the market for the greatest all-aged handicap race in the world.

; But even in his quiet way he has attracted a blaze of publicity even though he is in one of Victoria’s racing backwaters at Momington. Snow Lupton, who is 63, >- “I suppose you could say I’m a pensioner” he told an interviewer — handles Kiwi in most of his work, and rode the chestnut over 800 m in 54.45, 15m out of the course proper at Morningion yesterday. '• That proved a tasty item bf news for many of the small army of interstate racing writers in Melbourne. “That must be a first,” one Sydney journalist remarked. “Pensioner in the pigskin in Cup fancy’s final gallop.” Trainer pleased - But Snow Lupton, who belongs to a Waverley

family identified with racing for close to 100 years, does not think there is anything unusual about keeping tabs on the fitness of his good stayer from the best possible position, from the saddle.

“He’s not a good track galloper, and I am pleased with that run this morning,” Lupton said yesterday. “It’s not two weeks since he won at Hawera and I have never worried about not having another race closer to the Melbourne

Cup.” Mr Lupton said he is confident Kiwi will run a great race. At present he plans to stay on at Mornington and run Kiwi in the Sandown Cup on Saturday of next week.

Mr Lupton travelled up to Melbourne from Mornington yesterday afternoon and walked over the course at Flemington with Kiwi’s Cup rider, Jim Cassidy. Cassidy flew from Christchurch to Melbourne on Sunday evening, and he was out on the roads for a 20 minute run yesterday morning. Kiwi" has drawn one of the inside barrier positions and Cassidy will probably ease him early to settle well down the field. Cyril Pfefferle, the Trentham trainer Of Fountaincourt, is quietly confident he will beat Kiwi, just as he did in the Masterton Cup earlier in the spring. “I’m quite sure Kiwi will wind up with one of those big runs of his in the Cup. He is a horse who stays well enough to go another round. But if my horse gets the run we are looking for well up in the field Kiwi will be giving us a big start when they straighten up.”

Pfefferle has not had a moment’s worry with 'Fountaincourt in the build-up for today’s race. “He’s eating his head off and I’ve had to keep the work up to him,” Pfefferle said yesterday morning as he watched Fountaincourt doing pace work on an inside grass in the hands of his race rider, Noel Harris.

Pfefferle believes Fountaincourt will get stiffest opposition from the Moonee Willey Cup winner, Toujours Mio, a six-year-old trained at Flemington by his close friend, Pat Courtney. “I see Toujours Mio eveiy morning, and he is thriving like my fellow is,” Pfefferle said.

Tommy Smith, who will put the 1981 winner, Just A Dash, and the improving four-year-old, Chiamare, into the race, has a fancy for Toujours Mio, also for Kiwi.

“You New Zealanders put on the right kind of races to develop stayers and keep giving them their chances,” Smith told me yesterday. “On what I saw of Kiwi at Trentham he’s going to be right in the race at the end. But my fellow Chiamare was a good enough stayer to win our St Leger, and he has a good sprint with it. He’s a classic winner in the race with 52kg. Don’t forget him.” Seven Cups

Bart Cummings, who has a record seven Melbourne Cups on his record, has also quinellaed the race four times — with Light Fingers and Ziema in 1965, Galilee and Light Fingers (1966), Think Big and Leilani (1974), and Think Big and Holiday Waggon (1975).

This year his hopefuls are No Peer and Mr Jazz, and he is is mildly surprised that bookmakers regard No Peer’s chances so lightly. “I think he is a better, than 50-to-one chance, where he has appeared in some markets,” Cummings said yesterday. “Cummings said he would not have taken the trouble to bring John Miller from Perth to take the ride if he thought his free going chestnut lacked a good chance. But that said, he added that Mr Jazz probably looked a slightly stronger chance from his place in the weights four kilos below No Peer.

Triumphal March has one big question mark hanging over his chance — his behaviour before the race. And Colin Hayes is hoping the deafeners in the horse’s ears during the Cup parade will help to keep the Irishbred cool and composed. “I hope he acts up a bit — if he didn’t it would be right out of character for him,” Brent Thomson, Triumphal March’s jockey, said yesterday. “All we want is a happy medium,” he added. “If he breaks but into a heavy sweat he will have had half a race by the time the starter says go.” Hayai, the New Zealandbred attempting to make history by completing the A.J.C. Metropolitan-Caul-field and Melbourne Cups treble, has come up well

after his unplaced run in the Mackinnon Stakes.

Hayai strode away from the 1600 m at Flemington yesterday and was allowed to quicken for his last 400. “He wants to dance and prance — a sure sign he is ready for a big race,” said J. Lee, the Sydney trainer of the horse, whose sire, Skyhawk 11, is now standing at a Central Otago stud.

“Great chance”

Peter Cook, the Sydney jockey who will ride Veloso today, said last season’s Sydney Cup winner had had a few problems, but fortunately they were small ones, and . they had disappeared at the right time. “He’s a great Cup chance,” Cook commented. Veloso, a four-year-old by Zamazaam, is the most highly rated of horses of his age in the race on 55.5, half a kilo above Hayai. Gumer’s Lane won last year as a four-year-old with 56kg, becoming the 36th successful horse of that age since the race was introduced in 1861.

Five-year-olds share the honours with the four-year-olds, but there is a sharp drop to 19 wins by six-year-olds and only six by seven-year-olds. • There has never been a successful nine-year-old or any one older, but of course Mick Brown was never tempted to come this way with his freak stayer Great Sensation, which won his third Wellington Cup when he was 10.

Perhaps if Mr Brown had given Great Sensation his chance, Kiwi might not have had history weighing so heavily against him today.

Kiwi remains “The Press” selection, with Mr Jazz and Foutaincourt next in favour. Other selections

Jack Elliott, “Melbourne Herald”: Kiwi, Chiamare,

Mr Jazz. . Keith Hillier, “Melbourne Sun”: Noble Heights, Mr Jazz, Nostradamus. Tony Bourke, “Melbourne Age”: Nostradamus, Chagemar, Fountaincourt. Graeme Kelly, “The Australian”: Mr Jazz, Chiamare, Fountaincourt. Max Presnell, “Sydney Sun”: Fountaincourt, Noble Comment, Chiamare. Allan Brown, “New Zealand Herald”: Kiwi, Mr Jazz,

Chimare. Tony Hilton, “The Dominion”: Fountaincourt, Kiwi, Mr Jazz.