Mike Dillon: Bookies ‘took her on’ and lost

It's appropriate that Lee Freedman dropped in that Shakespeare is one of his idols.

What you saw on Tuesday wasn't a horse race, it was pure theatre.

And Shakespeare never did it better.

It's too easy to say Makybe Diva will be remembered for being the only horse to win three Melbourne Cups.

That alone is a phenomenal achievement - after all only four horses in 145 years had won two.

That deserves to be in the record book and it will be the magnificent mare's legacy.

But it's better than that.

What will be dissolved with time is just how impossible it was to win the Cup for a mare carrying 58kg.

That couldn't be done. But it was.

Bookmakers, among the smartest statistical analysts on the planet - if they get it wrong they don't eat -"took her on", in racing parlance.

Makye Diva started favourite, but bookies framed their market saying she could not win.

They let the punters on for millions - don't forget the A$143 million ($152 million) bet with the TAB alone was A$7 for every person in Australia - and paid the ultimate price.

Yet in that wonderfully emotional moment they joined everyone to cheer a champion back in.

In a way the bookies got it right.

They analysed the race the way that they analyse every race and the way that has gained them the resources to drive home from the track in a Ferrari.

They applied the statistical rules that apply to every horse.

Every horse except Makybe Diva.

Out and out champions have no respect for the norm.

They go beyond what is normally impossible.

Consider this. Apart from Irish champ Vinnie Roe, Makybe Diva was the only Cup runner that came even close to carrying a weight relative to weight-for-age.

Vinnie Roe was 0.5kg under weight-for-age and Makybe Diva 2kg over it.

If you take the mare's 2kg allowance under that tried and true scale, she carried the male equivalent of 60kg.

Add to that the 1kg jockey's vest which is not part of the official weigh and Makybe Diva in real terms lumped 61kg.

Winning a record third Melbourne Cup was not what Makybe Diva had to overcome, it was her weight.

Which brings us to Xcellent.

Winning a Melbourne Cup is all about getting under the handicapper's guard. Unless you're a Makybe Diva, weight relativity is crucial.

With no Makybe Diva to worry about, Xcellent, who should be a lot stronger in a year's time, looks a great chance to win the 2006 Melbourne Cup.

But his handicap will need protecting.

When Cup weights were declared a couple of months ago there was a general feeling the 54kg Xcellent was given this time was, yeah, okay.

It now looks like he was badly handicapped - he got only 4kg from a dual Melbourne Cup winner.

Now that he has finished third under 54kg he cannot realistically expect less next year and may well get more.

And that's even if he doesn't win a decent race meantime.

Which means his connections have a big decision to make.

You can't sit on a horse as good as Xcellent for a year without winning a race when he is capable of pulling in several million dollars before next November.

But if he does, it puts in serious doubt his ability to win a Melbourne Cup. Unless, like Makybe Diva, he gets a whole lot better each year he comes back.

Let's hope so.

You can't get too much of days like Tuesday.