Racing: Baker boys tame the Aussies at Flemington

Murray Baker. Photo / APN

It's taken 30 years, but 87-year-old Phil Bayly finally got square for Sydney jockey Peter Cook costing him the 1980 Melbourne Cup with Blue Denim.

On a rain-drenched Flemington on Saturday, Bayly celebrated his wife Mildred's birthday by winning the A$1.5 million Victoria Derby with Blue Denim's great grandson Lion Tamer.

Today is Phil and Mildred Bayly's 58th wedding anniversary and tomorrow the couple have a strong chance of winning the A$6 million Melbourne Cup with another Blue Denim descendant, Harris Tweed.

It's been a long time coming, but this could be one of the greatest get-square weeks ever in horse racing.

Lion Tamer didn't just win, he made the Derby look like two different races.

He did what the Robert Sangster-owned Belldale Ball did to beat Blue Denim into second when Peter Cook made woeful decisions on the New Zealand mare that cost her Melbourne Cup glory.

"What a great birthday present," said Mildred Bayley, standing in the birdcage in torrential rain under a barely adequate umbrella.

Nearby in the birdcage co-trainer Bjorn Baker was getting wetter and caring less as he waited for Channel 7 to interview him.

There was justice not just for Phil Bayly, but for Bjorn Baker's father Murray Baker, who has hankered to change his Victoria Derby luck for years.

"The first runner I was to have had was The Phantom.

"But a few days before acceptance time he ran off at the 800m crossing at Flemington trackwork, hurt his back and I had to withdraw him."

The 2007 Derby winner Kibbutz was sold to Australia after winning his first race from the Cambridge Baker stable.

A year later, Baker tried to get Nom du Jeu ready for the Flemington classic, but the wet tracks of spring in New Zealand stood in the way of a proper preparation.

Three-and-a-half months later, Nom du Jeu won the AJC Derby in Sydney.

Murray Baker had a chuckle moment several hours before Saturday's Derby.

Asked if he was going to saddle Lion Tamer once the torrential rain settled in, Baker said: "No. I told Bjorn this morning I was going to saddle him and he said, 'No, you're not. I don't want an old bugger like you doing it. I'm saddling him'.

"Did I back a winner there?" said Murray Baker, pointing at the Flemington downpour he was trying to shelter from.

Carrying a saddle, it's a very long walk from the weighing room to the saddling area at Flemington.

Bjorn Baker made much more complimentary remarks about his 64-year-old father at the official press conference.

"I used to work for John Oxx in Ireland and he's like me - he started out training with his father.

"He told me one day that when you start training with a father you start out thinking they know only a little bit.

"A couple of years later you think they know a fair bit.

"Another couple of years on you realise they know a lot.

"You end up realising they're actually geniuses.

"That's where I am with Murray - he's my genius. I often have a say,

but I have come to believe that Murray knows best. He has the last say and he doesn't get it wrong."

Bjorn Baker is a pharmacist who gave up that business in Ireland a couple of years ago to come home and join a partnership with his father.

"I always had an interest as a little kid as I spent time at dad's stable, but my interest was probably more in the punt in those days.

"But one thing I always remember as a boy. I asked Dad what race he would most like to win and he said the Victoria Derby."

Lion Tamer has always looked the goods since he came from a clear last to win a listed Pukekohe juvenile race on debut last season.

He won the Ming Dynasty Stakes in Sydney earlier in the spring and Murray Baker believes the even greater improvement is thanks to extra gear.

"He's a better horse since we put blinkers and a tongue tie on him.

"He was crabbing in his races in Sydney and he's galloping properly now."

Lion Tamer's rider Hugh Bowman was fined A$1000 for the extended victory salute he gave one stride before the finish, but the excitement had been building for a while.

"I couldn't make him go slow enough at the 800m. We had the race won a long way from home."