Racing: Take it from the wizard: Kaapstad Way to win the cup

By MIKE DILLON

MELBOURNE - It's 6.10am in Melbourne. The140th running of the Melbourne Cup is 33 hours away and in the gloom of an overcast dawn, Bart Cummings sits quietly in the corner of the observation tower in the middle of Flemington racecourse.

He stares distractedly into a plastic cup of coffee. The scene does not reek of 11 Melbourne Cup victories.

The man who helped to redefine the Southern Hemipshere's richest horse race is clearly bored. Or is he simply shattered that he does not have a runner in today's $A3 million Melbourne Cup?

Cummings' main Cup hope, Oxford Dollar, needed to finish first or second in Saturday's $A500,000 Mackinnon Stakes to guarantee a cup start, but had no luck in running and finished just behind the placed horses. He was not promoted ahead of more qualified acceptors when the field was finalised on Saturday night, something Cummings had gambled on.

"You're a bit quieter today, Bart," you offer, and he lifts those piercing eyes that have picked out most of his 11 cup winners.

"I'd rather not be," he says in his almost unique, dry, understated Irish way.

So if he can't sum up the Melbourne Cup on how they rate against a horse of his own, what does the training wizard think will win the race he reveres above all others?

"Kaapstad Way, the Kiwi horse."

You don't ask Cummings to elaborate. He's either going to because he wants to, or it isn't going to happen.

There is a pregnant pause.

"I thought his run in the Caulfield Cup was terrific," he said. "Outside of him, I like Freemason and Diatribe."

Bart wanders down the stairs, probably wondering how he will fill in his Melbourne Cup day without a cup runner.

New Zealand trainer Chris Wood will not train 11 Melbourne Cup winners in his career - neither will anyone else - but he and his wife, Colleen, are under-rated in their business.

When they walk on to Flemington and push through the mass of revellers to saddle Kaapstad Way for the cup, they will pass the bronze statute of Bart Cummings which the Victoria Racing Club commissioned.

In racing you feed off your own confidence. But with the spread of self-doubt that creeps into the hearts of most trainers as the field parades for a Melbourne Cup, there can be no better feeling than knowing Cummings is sitting in the grandstand thinking you can win.

While Cummings' other two tips, Freemason and Diatribe, overtook Kaapstad Way as favourite over the weekend, several leading bookmakers believe the weight of money that is likely to flood in for Kaapstad Way this afternoon could see him start favourite. And some of it will be from the pocket of Bart Cummings.

Sixteen thousand more than the record of 76,000 showed up for Derby Day on Saturday and officials have geared for the possibility of an all-time record 120,000 today. Fine weather and a near-perfect track are forecast.