Racing: Memory lane for Lance O'Sullivan

Willie Cazals co-trainers Lance O'Sullivan and Andrew Scott. Photo / Warren Buckland

Lance O'Sullivan got a Melbourne Cup reminder when a delegation representing Racing Victoria stopped off at his Matamata stable.

It was the annual road trip taking the actual Melbourne Cup around parts of the world, with the New Zealand stopover concentrating on a few Melbourne Cup hopefuls in the North Island.

The interest at the O'Sullivan and Andrew Scott stable was Sir Charles Road, the Group Two Chairman's Quality (2600m) winner at Randwick and last-start third placegetter in the Group One Sydney Cup (3200m).

Among the Racing Victoria squad was trainer Sheila Laxon, who knows the feeling of winning a Melbourne Cup. Laxon triumphed in 2001 with Ethereal, New Zealand's most recent owned, trained and bred winner of the Flemington feature.

O'Sullivan came frustratingly close to winning the Cup as a jockey in 1985 on Koiro Corrie May.

It was the first $1 million Melbourne Cup and Koiro Corrie May, trained by Dave and Paul O'Sullivan, went down a mere short head to the Lloyd Williams-owned New Zealand-bred What A Nuisance.

Now 33 years after Koiro Corrie May's near miss, O'Sullivan is in the Melbourne Cup running again, this time as a trainer. But he's not about to get carried away.

"There's certainly a lot of water to go under the bridge to get there," he said. "To win it would be a dream. It would be exciting just to have a runner."

O'Sullivan has seen the rise both in quality and prizemoney in the Melbourne Cup with sponsor Lexus taking the total prizemoney for the 3200m feature on November 6 to $7.9 million.

"It's extremely difficult to win with the Northern Hemisphere horses coming down," he said. "The quality is far stronger each year and it's recognised worldwide as one of the races to win."

So does he think he will get there with Charles Road?

"We know he can run two miles [3200m] and be competitive at the highest level, but we'll take it one step at a time," he said.

- NZ Racing Desk