Melbourne Cup: Effervescent trainer faces big test

Alcopop and Jake Stephens relax before the biggest day of their lives. Photo / Supplied by Herald Sun

Last year Jake Stephens' mate wanted him to accompany him to the Melbourne Cup.

"Can't," said Stephens, "I've got a horse having its first start that I think can win next year's Melbourne Cup."

Yeah Right.

It's the type of sentence you quickly get used to hearing from Stephens, who no one had heard of 12 months ago.

Even when you know the horse he was talking about, Alcopop, won that first race you still don't think Melbourne Cup.

It was race one for A$8000 at Morphettville after all.

But there is a quiet yet all-consuming air of confidence surrounding this 32-year-old ex-professional polo player and passionate wind surfer from South Australia.

It's almost menacing. Frightening.

If Stephens can tear off today's A$5.5 million Melbourne Cup with Alcopop it will be one of the great romances of the turf.

Stephens is one of those blokes you loved to hate at school.

Everything he attempts he achieves with ease.

He probably "got" physics the first day he opened the textbook.

This is no bush trainer. He comes from wealthy farming stock, owns a massive block of beautiful South Australia and if you think he's overawed by locking horns with the great Bart Cummings this afternoon, think again.

Cummings has forgotten 10 times more of his winners than Stephens has produced in total.

But Stephens is not worried about the Bart Cummings legend.

He believes Cummings should be more worried about him.

He says so without emotion or boast, just supreme confidence.

Stephens bred Alcopop from a mare that was given to him as a polo pony.

With the assurance that perpetually follows him, Stephens put that mare, Iota Of Luck, into work and won two races with her.

"I know it might sound trite, but I bred this horse thinking about the Melbourne Cup.

"He's by a Melbourne Cup winner [Jeune] out of a mare whose dam was by a Melbourne Cup winner [At Talaq]."

Just about everyone has tried to buy Alcopop off him. Surprisingly, given he has no trouble paying the grocery bills, Stephens twice agreed to sell.

First at A$100,000, then A$300,000, but each time he agreed the agent didn't make the final call back.

The phone went again offering a million dollars when Alcopop donkey licked Saturday's impressive Lexus winner Shocking at his last start.

Stephens told him to get lost, they'd had their chance.

The Melbourne Cup is littered with stories fabulously rich in character.

This will be one of them if Alcopop can repel the Cummings machine that has been so strong this spring.

Stephens' farming and stable staff describe him as the greatest entrepreneur they've seen.

Last week he even put a patent on the name Alcopop - just in case.

That's not something even Bart has considered.