View photosKEY POINTS:
What's this - Graeme Rogerson retiring?
You'd like to be betting against it.
Yet racing's dynamo, who gives the impression he'll never be dead and buried, gave a slight hint at possible retirement after winning yesterday's A$5 million Emirates Melbourne Cup with Efficient.
"I've won a Golden Slipper
and a Derby, now the Melbourne Cup - we'll see."
They'll be laying bets right up to start time on that one.
That wasn't the only strange moment after yesterday's Cup.
One of the original four owners before Graeme Rogerson sold 75 per cent of the horse to multi-millionaire Lloyd Williams is Wellington property valuer Mike Sellars.
Sellars stood in the Flemington birdcage after the race looking as if someone had just hit him over the head with a baseball bat.
"I can't believe how composed I am - I've just won the Melbourne Cup for God's sake.
"Normally I'm the 'you beaut, get up you good thing, let's drink plenty of champagne' kind of bloke after winning a race - look at me, you wouldn't think I'd just won the biggest race ever."
It wasn't composure, it was disbelief.
It affected Sellars so deeply, it actually didn't occur to him to go out to the official presentation and receive the Cup.
"Hadn't you better go out there and be part of that," someone from the media said.
"Yes, I suppose I should," and off he wandered.
But it wasn't quite that simple.
Because of the equine influenza problem, the Flemington birdcage is sectioned into authorised and unauthorised areas. To go near where the horses are, and to get to the presentation, Sellars had to get through two sets of gates that were not meant to be opened.
After quite a bit of negotiating with officials, he was allowed through and missed the first half of the presentation.
Sellars owns a quarter of Efficient with his brother Tony, Scott Williams (no relation of Lloyd's) and Graeme Hunt.
Sellars says he has never met Lloyd Williams.
The Sellars family have the right breeding to be group one winners in Australia. They are direct descendants of the Cox family, of Cox Plate fame.
Efficient had to be brave to win because English stayer Purple Moon gave him something to chase from the home turn.
Damien Oliver rode a magnificent race on Purple Moon, who still looked to be holding Efficient 100m from the finish.
His trainer Luca Cumani went home after his first attempt on the Melbourne Cup last year confident he knew what was required to win the race.
Cumani did his homework well and missed by only a narrow margin.
"We'll be back, we've got some unfinished business," he said as he walked off to see how Purple Moon had pulled up.
Another who will definitely be back is Irish trainer Aidan O'Brien, whose immature stayer Mahler ran so well for third.
Although sweating between his back legs shortly before the start, Mahler did not get as worked up as O'Brien had imagined he might.
It was also O'Brien's first Cup and he says it makes him even more determined to one day win the race.
"I've never seen anything like this - there's nothing like this in the world."
Melbourne Cup finishing order
1. Efficient (6)
2. Purple Moon (12)
3. Mahler (24)
4. Zipping
5. Dolphin Jo
6. On A Jeune
7. Blue Monday
8. Master O'Reilly
9. Sculptor
10. Lazer Sharp
11. Douro Valley
12. Sirmione
13. Princess Coup
14. Tawqeet
15. Eskimo Queen
16. Scenic Shot
17. Black Tom,
18. Sarrera
19. Blutigeroo
20. Railings
21. Tungsten Strike
Scratched: Scratched: Gallic, Maybe Better, The Fuzz.
